LIBRARY 


OF    THK 


Theological    Seminary 

PRINCETON.     N.    J. 


Sin/J 
Ii0(,h 


BL  240  .L48  1875 
Lewis,  Tayler,  1802-1877. 
"The  light  by  which  we  se^ 
light" 


THE  VEDDER    LECTURES,   1875. 


'  ¥l\e  L(i^l:\t  by  wl\idl\  we  ^ee  L(i^t\t," 


OR 


™tme  and  the  scriptures. 


A   COURSE   OF   LECTURES 


DELIVERED    BEFORE 


Clje  Cljeologual  Seminary  untr Rutgers  College, 

NEW  BRUNSWICK,   NEIV  JERSEY. 


LER^.EWIS,    L 


TAYLER'^.EWIS,    LL.D.,     L.H.D., 

UNION    COLLEGE. 


Rv  dpxxi  fp'  0  ^ioyog. — John  L  I 


NEIV    YORK: 
BOARD  OF  PUBLICATION  OF  THE  R.  C.  A., 

34    VESEY    STREET. 
i875- 


Entered  accordiug  to  Act  of  Cougress,  in  the  year  1875,  by 

WILLIAM  FERRIS,  Agent, 

In  the  Office  of  the  Librarian  of  Congress,  at  Washington,  D.  C. 


THE 


VEDDER   LECTURES. 


1875. 


PREFACE. 


The  general  title  chosen  for  this  little  book  is  regarded 
as,  more  than  any  other,  suggestive  of  its  pervading 
thought.  The  study  of  nature  alone  is  ever  revealing 
more  mysteries  than  it  solves.  At  every  step  the  dark- 
ness grows  faster  than  the  light.  Endless  links,  endless 
adaptations,  ever  terminating  in  the  physical — endless 
repetitions,  in  fact,  of  the  same  forms  of  force, — they 
never  lead  us  out  of  the  labyrinth,  but  only  extend 
farther  and  farther,  on  every  side,  the  limitless  unknown. 
The  soul  cannot  rest  in  this.  It  would  know  the 
meaning  of  nature.  It  earnestly  asks :  What  is  it  all 
about  ?  The  inquiry  itself  is  a  religious  one,  and  re- 
ligion alone  can  furnish  the  answer.  However  dim  or 
feeble  this  may  be,  it  immediately  elevates  us  above  the 
depressing  effects  of  mere  physical  knowledge.  But 
religion  without  revelation,  or  faith  in  some  kind  of 
communion  with  the  Infinite  mind,  is  a  shadow.  Hence, 
the  idea  never  lost  sight  of  in  these  discourses  :  In 
Theology,  in  Christianity,  in  the  Holy  Scriptures,  which 
we  receive  as  the  Word  of  God,  there  is  a  grandeur  of 
thought  unknown  to  any  scheme  of  science,  and  which 
puts  the  humblest   believer,   however   uncultured   and 


VI 


PREFACE. 


unlearned,  above  the  proudest  intellect  that  is  a  stranger 
to  any  such  influence.     As  Christians  we    should   not 
hesitate  to  avow  this,  and  firmly  maintain  it.  We  should 
appeal  directly  to  Christian  experience,  as  a  mighty  fact 
which  science  has  no  right  to  overlook.     God's  Word, 
if  it  be  indeed  God's  Word,  must  be  a  "koyoq  (^wv  Kai 
ei'£py7/f,    a   "living   power."     It   is   not    to   be   merely- 
defended,  or  made  the  subject  of  tame  apologies.     It  is 
to  be  carried  with  us,  not  as  an  obsolete  relic,  carefully 
enclosed  in  a  guarded  ark,  but  as  our  banner  in  front  of 
the  host.     With  this  we  conquer.     Without  it  the  most 
ingenious    argumentation    can    only   yield   a    seeming 
victory.     "  The  Majesty  and  Glory  of  God  beaming  in 
the  Scriptures,"  as  some  of  our  older  divines  were  fond 
of  calling  it;  this  is  to  be  our  "Refuge  and  our  Strength." 
As  is   said   in  the  closing   sentence  of  the  Fifth  Lec- 
ture :    "  The  Bible  itself  must  be  brought  out  as  the 
best    defence   against   infidelity, — the    Bible   itself,  not 
only  as  the  great  standing  miracle   of  history,  but  as 
containing  unearthly  ideas  for  which  no  Philosophy,  no 
Theory  of  Development,  can  ever  account.     To  such 
study  it  will  reveal  itself  as  *  the  Power  (the  6vva\ii(;,  or 
healing  virtue)  of   God.      Other   defences    are    indeed 
important,  but  without  this,  they  are  shorn  of  the  great 
strength  which  can  alone  make  them  available  to  the 
pulling   down   of  strongholds   and    the    overthrow   of 

the  truth's  unwearied  foes." 

T.  L. 

Schenectady,  June  /^th,  1875. 


CONTENTS. 


LECTURE   I. 

THE    TEARFULNESS    OF    ATHEISM,         -         -         -         -         II 

LECTURE   IL 

THE  DENIAL  OF  THE  SUPERNATURAL,  -    -    -    57 

LECTURE   IIL 

THE    COSMICAL    ARGUMENT. — WORLDS    IN     SPACE,       103 

LECTURE   IV. 

COSMICAL     ARGUMENT     CONTINUED. — WORLDS    IN 

TIME,  -___.--_-       141 

LECTURE   V. 

THE  KINGDOM  OF  GOD  ;  OR,  THE  GREATNESS  OF 
THE  BIBLE  THEISM,  AS  COMPARED  WITH  THE 
PHYSICAL,    SCIENTIFIC,    AND     PHILOSOPHICAL,       187 


LECTURE   I. 

THE  FEARFULNESS   OF  ATHEISM. 


LECTURE    I. 

THE   FEARFULNESS   OF  ATHEISM. 

The  sharp  issue— Moral  dislike  of  the  Thiestic  idea  on  the  part  of  some— Re- 
luctance at  wholly  giving  it  up — Consequence  of  its  abandonment,  intellec- 
tual as  well  as  moral  desolation — The  doctrines  of  hell  and  retribution  less 
fearful—Chance  and  Law—Law  as  sequence  merely — Atheism  all  horror—The 
seriousness  of  the  world  problem— The  ideas  of  holiness  and  justice  fasci- 
nating even  in  their  condemnation — Atheism  without  hope,  without  secu- 
rity— Atheism  may  have  its  after  state — The  idea  of  progress  has  no  foun- 
dation in  such  a  view — Nature  necessarily  finite — Law  of  growth  and  decay 
— Cyclical  movement — Retrogradations — Must  run  round  and  run  out — 
Needs  a  renovating  power — Plato  and  Aristotle — Argument  for  Diety  must 
be  something  plain,  adapted  to  all  minds — Motion  demands  a  Mover — 
Scientific  cry:  "Give  it  time  enough" — On  the  Atheistic  view  the  direc- 
tion of  the  universal  movement  indeterminable.  Illustrations — The  Scien- 
tific Insect  crawling  amid  the  machinery  of  the  great  Harlaam  organ  ;  its 
mighty  music  all  unknown — Higher  aspects  of  the  universe — The  physical 
subordinate  to  the  hyperphysical — Nature  a  means^  has  no  e7ids  termi- 
nating in  itself— Mind,  idea,  first — The  perfect,  first — Melancholy  view  of 
Strauss— The  despairing  Prometheus. 

In  a  feature  of  the  times  which  is  most  dreaded 
may  be  discovered  one  of  the  chief  sources  of 
hope  for  the  cause  of  truth.  We  may  reverently 
thank  God  that  it  is  a  day  of  sharp  and  inevitable 
issues.  The  most  sacred  truths,  the  foulest  form 
of  error,  stand  face  to  face.  Difficulties  in  re- 
ligion are  weakened,  or  utterly  vanish,  when  we 
see  what  immensely  greater  difficulties  of  irre- 
ligion  our  yielding  to  them  must  finally  involve. 
Error  must  develop  itself.  It  is  a  law  of  the 
thinking  soul,  as  sure,  as  steady  in  its  progress, 

(II) 


12  VEDDER  LECTURES. 

as  certain  in  its  results,  as  any  alleged  evolution 
of  the  physical  world.  Error  must  develop 
itself.  It  is  especially  true  of  religious  error.  It 
has  no  tenacity,  no  holding-place.  It  cannot 
stand  still ;  it  must  keep  on,  wandering  farther 
and  farther  from  the  light,  until  it  comes  to  that 
precipice  of  atheism  beyond  whose  verge,  or 
beneath  whose  verge,  lies  6  ^b(^o<;  rov  oKorovg  elg 
alu)va,  ''  the  very  blackness  of  darkness  for  ever." 
That  issue  is  now  presenting  itself,  short  and 
sharp.  The  haze  which  has  covered  "  the  bridge 
of  the  war,"  as  Homer  calls  it, — that  has  rendered 
indistinct  and  confused  the  middle  ground  of  the 
battle-field — that  has  prevented  our  seeing  truly 
the  dividing  lines  of  the  opposing  hosts — is  fast 
clearing  up.  There  is  revealed  a  spectacle  that, 
in  one  sense,  may  indeed  be  called  appalling,  and 
yet  is  full  of  encouragement  in  respect  to  the  issue 
of  the  great  conflict.  Natural  religion  is  gone  ; 
the  old  forms  of  deism  have  departed  ;  difficulties 
of  Scripture,  questions  of  inspiration  and  canon- 
icity  are  thrown  into  the  background  ;  pantheism 
has  dropped  its  mask ;  apparent  extremes  have 
come  together ;  a  false  spiritualism  is  found  to  be 
but  a  spectre  of  the  grossest  materialism.  The 
mirage  is  dissolving ;  the  ghosts  have  fled  ;  and 
now  there  stand  directly  confronting  each  other, 
the  two  mighty  foes  that  all  along  through  all  the 


THE  FEARFULNESS  OF  A  THEISM.  1 3 

illusions,  and  all  the  obscurities  of  the  darkened 
battle-field,  have  been  the  only  real  antagonists. 
On  the  one  side  stands  Christianity,  the  old  Chris- 
tianity, the  only  Christianity  that  has  ever  had 
power  for  the  souls  of  men ;  on  the  other,  blank 
atheism,  with  all  the   appalling   desolation    that 
connects   itself  with  the   thought   of  a   godless 
world.     As  thus  presented,  we  cannot  doubt  the 
final  result.    Our  greatly  disordered  humanity  is, 
indeed,  full  of  paradoxes.     The  Apostle's  charge 
is  true.     There  is  something  in  man's  moral  con- 
dition that  makes  painful  the  thought  of  a  per- 
sonal   God    when   brought    very  nigh  the  soul. 
How  to  preserve  something  of  the  theistic  idea, 
and  yet  avoid  this  disturbing   moral  conscious- 
ness,  has   been   the   problem    ever  since  Adam 
*'  hid  himself  from  the  presence  of  the  Lord  God 
in   the   trees  of  the    Garden."     All  history  has 
shown  how  from  this  effort  came  nature-worship, 
pantheism,  thence  polytheism  and  foul  idolatry. 
In   this   fallen   and  falling  tendency,  the  divine 
idea  is  ever  becoming  more  and  more  deformed 
on  the  one  hand,  or  dimmed  on  the  other, — ever 
more  and  more  assimilated  to  ourselves  in  gross- 
ness,  or  philosophically  refined  away  into  an  ab- 
straction, an  idea,  a  cause,  a  power,  a  bare  force, 
divested,  as  far  as  possible,  of  all  moral  attributes. 
And  yet  there  is  a  struggle  against  its  total 


I  .  VEDDER  LECTURES. 

abandonment,  when  we  are  brought  face  to  face 
with  that  sharp  decision.  When  it  nears  that 
awful  verge,  humanity — the  common  humanity, 
as  distinguished  from  that  of  the  frigid  specu- 
latist,  the  common  humanity,  with  its  hopes 
and  fears,  its  weariness  and  dissatisfaction — starts 
back  with  shuddering  awe.  It  cannot  take  that 
last  plunge,  that  reckless  leap  into  total  darkness. 
Religion  cannot  indeed  be  thought  of  by  it  with- 
out the  accompaniment  of  fearful  ideas  ;  but  here 
is  something  still  more  fearful.  Much  as  it  may 
have  disliked  the  moral  and  retributive  as  insep- 
arable from  the  personal  aspect  of  the  divine 
character,  it  cannot  bear  the  thought  of  a  uni- 
verse without  a  creator,  without  a  governing 
mind,  without  a  providence,  without  a  judge 
of  right  and  wrong,  making  an  eternal  dis- 
tinction between  them,  approving  the  one  and 
condemning  the  other  with  an  intensity  to  which 
the  strongest  human  approval  and  condemnation 
can  bear  no  comparison.  It  cannot  part  finally 
with  the  idea  so  deeply  planted  in  the  human 
soul,  entering  into  all  the  m3'thologies,  dramatic- 
ally and  epically  represented  in  the  world's 
highest  ideals,  that  good  must  conquer  evil,  that 
right  must  triumph  over  wrong,  that  truth  must 
prevail  to  the  discomfiture  of  error,  that  there  is 
to  be    an    eschatology,    whatever    difficulties    of 


THE  FEARFULNESS   OF  ATHEISM.  jc 

place  and  time  may  be  connected  with  such  a 
thought — a  latter-day  development,  somehow, 
and  somewhere,  that  shall  clear  up  the  confusion 
and  darkness  that  now  cover  the  face  of  nature 
and  the  history  of  man.  It  may  not  logically 
reason  out  the  position,  but  it  feels  unerringly 
that  the  total  loss  of  the  idea  of  God  brings  with 
it  an  efFacement  of  all  these  distinctions.  There 
is  no  virtue,  no  holiness,  no  right.  There  is  no 
truth  ;  it  has  no  reality  except  as  God's  truth,  as 
the  emanation  of  an  eternal  mind,  or  its  image  as 
reflected  in  the  finite  comprehensions  of  the 
human  soul.  Facts  may  remain,  or  those  se- 
quences of  facts  which  some  call  laws,  but  they 
represent  nothing  j  they  have  no  meaning,  no 
idea.  The  intellectual  universe  is  as  truly  gone 
as  the  moral.  It  is  in  the  latter  aspect,  however, 
that  the  thought  most  readily  comes  home  to  us, 
and  in  all  its  withering  desolation  :  The  cosmos, 
like  a  vessel  tossed  in  infinite  space,  driven  we 
know  not  where  on  the  currents  of  time,  with 
no  hand  at  the  helm,  no  eye  upon  the  compass, 
no  course  assigned  or  assignable,  no  reason  con- 
ceivable why  it  should  not  ultimately  drift  in 
one  direction  as  well  as  in  another :  Man,  like 
a  bubble  appearing  for  a  moment  on  the  top 
of  the  nightly  wave,  mirroring  for  a  moment 
the  heaven  of  stars  above,  then  vanishing  into 


1 6  VEDDER  LECTURES. 

the  void  and  formless  deep.  And  then,  too, 
there  is  the  tcrribleness  of  nature,  when  there 
has  wholly  departed  the  belief  in  any  power 
that  can  either  protect  us  against  it,  or  in  any 
wisdom  that  can  giv^e  us  a  reason,  or  furnish 
the  ground  of  any  conceivable  reason,  why  we 
suffer  from  it,  or  why  we  should  struggle  with 
its  irresistible  forces.  It  is  the  thought  of  a 
universe  without  a  guardian,  without  a  Father, 
without  anything  to  shield  us  from  the  direst 
woes  that  chance  may  bring,  or  a  nature  infini- 
tesimally  known  in  its  parts,  and  utterly  un- 
known in  its  great  whole  of  power — a  nature 
which  we  see  to  be  full  of  the  most  awful  ca- 
tastrophes as  they  have  appeared  in  the  past, 
and  which,  for  aught  we  know,  may  be  im- 
measurably exceeded  in  the  future.  This  may 
be  called  an  overdrawn  picture  of  gloom,  but 
it  hardly  goes  beyond  that  given  by  Strauss 
himself  in  his  latest  most  melancholy  book.  It 
is  true  that,  though  having  no  better  hope  for 
himself  than  that  of  absorption  into  nature,  he 
grasps  at  some  idea  of  progress  or  order,  tend- 
ing to  the  good  of  the  race  or  of  the  universe  ; 
but  this,  as  we  shall  endeavor  to  show,  he  is 
compelled  to  borrow  from  another  school,  and 
his  use  of  it  is  only  evidence  of  his  despair. 
Schopenhauer    and    Von    Hartmann    are    more 


THE  FEARFULNESS  OF  ATHEISM.  ly 

bold,  or  more  unshrinking,  in  their  conclusions. 
**  Far  better  would  it  have  been  for  this  world," 
says  the  former,  *'  if  no  living  creature  had 
ever  dwelt  upon  it."  *'  The  universe,"  says 
Von  Hartmann,  "  is  miserable  throughout."  What* 
a  verification  of  the  Apostle's  language  :  dQeoi 
kv  rCd  KOGfio) — "  Having  no  hope  and  without  God 
in  the  w^orld." 

Men  shrink  from  this  when  fairly  seen  in  its 
awful  desolation.  The  old  religious  fear  is  more 
tolerable.  Hell  becomes  less  horrible  to  the 
thought  than  such  a  hopeless  atheism.  There 
may  be  a  reason  for  such  an  idea  of  fearful  retri- 
bution, even  if  it  be  true,  as  some  assert,  that 
men  have  invented  it  for  themselves.  It  is  direct- 
ly connected  with  the  thought  of  moral  distinc- 
tions, with  their  dread  consequences  when  re- 
garded as  truly  entering  into  the  divine  govern- 
ment. A  personal  God,  not  indifferent  to  right 
and  wrong ;  if  not  indifferent,  then  making  an  in- 
finite difference — approving  the  one  and  con- 
demning the  other  with  an  intensity  of  interest 
as  much  greater  than  that  of  any  human  estimate 
as  the  ways  of  the  infinite  God  are  above  those 
of  all  finite  intelligences  ;  there  is  reason  in 
this,  even  as  a  possibility  ;  and  wherever  reason 
enters,  there  is  alleviation,  something  on  which 
the  soul  can    rest,  finding,  as   it   does,    its    own 


ig  VEDDER  LECTURES. 

highest  worth  in  such  a  moral  destiny,  even  with 
all  its  alarming  consequences.  The  thought  of  a 
personal  God,  not  indifferent  to  sin — this  once 
fixed  in  the  mind  and  clearly  held,  the  transition 
is  direct  to  all  the  most  startling  verities  of  the 
Christian  system.  Retribution,  atonement,  grace, 
redemption,  a  great  perdition,  a  great  salvation, 
a  ofreat  and  divine  Saviour,  all  become  credible 
when  there  is  truly  reahzed  the  idea  of  sin. 
They  all  rise  as  it  rises  in  the  moral  estimate, 
they  all  fall  as  it  falls.  When  it  goes  out,  they 
become  incredible.  Atheism,  or  what  is  morally 
equivalent  to  it,  the  rejection  of  the  personal  idea, 
is  the  ultimate  antithesis  of  the  old  churchly 
belief,  and  one  who  commences  the  deviation 
should  calmly  estimate,  in  the  start,  the  distance 
to  which  it  must  inevitably  lead  him. 

To  the  mere  scientist,  or  the  mere  speculative 
thinker  of  any  class,  atheism  may  not  show  its 
most  frightful  face.  He  is  so  taken  up  with  him- 
self, so  intent  upon  regarding  the  universe  as  de- 
claring the  glory  of  the  astronomer  or  the 
naturalist,  that  he  has  little  or  no  thought  for 
anything  beyond.  His  eyes  are  holdenfrom  see- 
ing that  whatever  belittles  religion,  belittles 
science  and  philosophy  as  well,  rendering  all 
human  knowledge  and  all  human  aspiration  as 
aimless  and  as  valueless  as  it  is  ephemeral.     His 


THE   FEARFULiYESS   OF  ATHEISM. 


19 


absorption  in  the  physical  blinds  him  to  the  true 
dignity  of  man  as  related  to  something  above 
him,  and  transcending  nature.  In  this  state  of 
mind,  atheistic  ideas  may  not  distress  him.  So, 
too,  the  deep-seated,  yet  almost  unconscious  fear 
of  a  personal  Deity  may  even  awaken  an  instinc- 
tive feeling  of  relief  in  anything  that  veils  it  from 
the  view.  We  are  not  afraid  of  Nature,  terrible 
as  she  is,  as  long  as  the  thought  seems  to  screen 
us  from  a  greater  terror.  There  is  a  feeling  that 
we  can,  somehow,  take  care  of  ourselves  as 
against  her.  Her  earthquakes,  her  pestilences, 
her  upheavals,  her  terrific  devastations,  that  have 
left  such  traces  in  the  past,  as  they  may 
come  again  in  the  future — all  these  carry  with 
them  no  such  dread,  either  in  kind  or  degree,  as 
that  of  falling  into  *'  the  hands  of  the  living 
God."  And  yet,  with  all  this,  there  is  an  appall- 
ing hideousness  in  blank  atheism  when  it  fairly 
confronts  our  soberest  thought.  We  cannot 
composedly  resign  ourselves  to  the  notion  of  in- 
evitable chance,  introducing  all  conceivable 
forms  and  modes  of  being — all  measure  of  pos- 
sibihties  being  excluded  by  the  absence  of  any 
ruling  mind,  and  the  consequent  impossibility  of 
conceiving  any  limitations  to  the  rule  of  contin- 
gency. The  survival  of  the  strongest,  even  ad- 
mitting that  some  such  rule  of  forces  might  come 


20  VEDDER  LECTURES. 

iu   without   the  chance  of  reversal,   may  be  the 
survival  of  the  worst.     The  predominance  of  cer- 
tain tendencies  in  the  start  must  be  wholly  con- 
tino-ent,  if  it  is  wholly  mindless,  and  that  charac- 
ter  cannot  be  lost  in  any  subsequent  movement. 
If  it   is  chance   in    the    beginning,    it   is  chance 
throughout.      As  a  whole,  it   might  have   been 
anything  else,  although  in  a  tendency  once  origi- 
nated,   some    partial    movements   may    be    con- 
trolled by  others,  and  thus  seem  to  have  the  ap- 
pearance of  means  and  ends.     There  is,  indeed, 
an  effort  sometimes  made  to  evade  this.     Chance 
is  an  odious  term.     The   intellect,   we  may  say, 
repels   it,  as  well  as  the  moral  emotions.     It  is 
wholly  idealess;  it  altogether  eludes  our  think- 
ing, unless  we  attempt  to  transform  it  in  some- 
thing  else.       It  has    been   said,    therefore,    that 
chance  is  excluded  by  the  idea  of  law,  and  that 
it  is  not  so  much  in  itself  the  antithesis  of  mind,  as 
it  is  the  opposite  of  method,  order,  recurring  se- 
quence.   There  has  been  lately  a  labored  attempt 
to  prove  this  ;  but  those  who  assert  it  use  words 
without  meaning.      Law    as  applied  to   nature, 
may  indeed  be  said  to  be  a  figure:  but  is  it  not 
one  to  which  we  are  forced  if  we  would  connect 
with  our  language  any   conceptions  whatever? 
No  more  in  the  physical  than  in  the  moral  and 
the  political,  can  we  separate   law  from  the  idea 


THE  FEARFULNESS  OF  ATHEISM.  2 1 

of  a  law-giver ;  and  we  must  either  wholly  fall 
away  from  such  idea,  or  we  must  trace  it  up, 
through  man,  through  nature,  to  a  pure  personal 
mind.  Without  such  a  starting-point,  the  law 
itself,  if  we  continue  to  call  it  so,  the  movement, 
the  direction,  in  distinction  from  any  other 
movement  or  direction,  is  a  pure  contingency. 
It  is  not  difficult,  we  think,  to  detect  the  fallacy 
here.  Had  chance,  among  the  infinite  chances, 
produced  any  other  state  or  system  of  things 
than  that  which  now  exists,  it  would,  as  far  as 
we  know,  have  been  equally  law,  that  is,  equally 
entitled  to  that  name  as  given  to  the  sequence 
of  facts.  Had  it  been  any  other  state  of  things, 
it  would  have  had  series  of  events  capable  of 
some  kind  of  correlation.  It  would  have  had 
near  sequences,  remote  sequences,  intermediate 
sequences,  hidden  sequences,  perhaps,  we  could 
not  trace,  and  then  they  might  have  been  called 
hidden  laws  received  hypothetically,  and  after- 
wards verified,  or  modified,  when  there  were  dis- 
covered the  intervening  steps  or  links,  as  we 
would  then  call  them.  But  these  sequences,  these 
connections  with  no  other  discoverable  nexus 
than  contiguity,  might  also  have  been  something 
else,  and  no  reason  can  be  given  why  they 
would  not,  in  that  case  also,  have  been  laws 
as  well  as  those  that  are   found.     Whatever  is^ 


22  VEDDER  LECTURES. 

is  law,  in  whatever  way  events  may  follow.  Law 
becomes  sequence,  and  nothing  more.  We 
only  cheat  ourselves  when  we  attempt  to  dis- 
guise it  under  another  name.  Every  effort  to 
get  out  of  this  utterly  fails,  until  we  connect 
them  with  mind,  either  near  or  remote,  and  then 
alone  does  this  unthinkable  conception  of  chance, 
Tvxr\,  mere  happening,  cease  to  haunt  our  souls. 
On  the  materialistic  hypothesis,  the  very  ideas 
in  our  minds,  through  which  we  seem  to  rec- 
ognize something  more  than  sequence  in  events 
— such  as  the  ideas  of  order,  relation,  causality — 
are  themselves  but  products  of  this  mindless, 
Godless  power,  and  thus  themselves  as  much 
contingencies  as  the  outward  sequences  to  which 
they  are  applied.  Order  might  have  been  dis- 
order if  the  atomic  apparatus  of  our  thinking 
had  been  so  disposed.  The  positive  philosophy, 
neither  as  first  set  forth  by  Comte,  nor  as  de- 
lusively modified  by  Spencer  and  Mill,  has  any 
recognition  of  them  as  eternal  and  necessary 
ideas.  And  so,  as  between  chance  and  mind,  it 
has  no  right  to  recognize  any  intervening 
power.  Law  has  really  no  place  in  such  a 
scheme,  except  as  the  ghost  of  that  divine  idea 
which  the  atheistic  materialist  imagines  he  has 
slain. 

There  have  been  briefly    stated    some  of   the 


THE  FEARFULNESS  OF,  ATHEISM.  23 

things  which  may  render  atheism  not  only  toler- 
able, but  even  desirable,  for  certain  minds.  But, 
after  all,  to  the  sober  human  thought  it  is  an  ap- 
palling conception,  and  men  will  not  long  remain 
under  its  gloomy  shadow.  When  we  are  com- 
pelled to  look  the  monster  in  the  face,  it  is  all 
horror.  The  sternest  system  of  moral  retribution 
ever  connected  with  a  theistic  creed,  challenges 
a  preference.  As  has  already  been  said,  hell  is 
less  frightful  than  a  Godless  nature.  There  may 
be  a  reason  for  a  condition  of  awful  severity.  It 
connects  itself  with  the  ideas  of  justice,  of  benev- 
olence, of  acting  for  a  reason,  and  that  reason 
the  highest  good  of  rational  and  moral  being. 
We  cannot  bear  to  lose  these  ideas,  though  feel- 
ing that  we  take  them  at  an  awful  risk.  Our 
own  reason  and  our  own  experience  are  sufficient 
to  convince  us  of  the  possibility  of  something  far 
beyond  us  here.  It  is  not  difficult  for  us  to  ad- 
mit that  our  own  moral  state  may  be  a  fallen  one, 
or  such  that  we  cannot  estimate  aright  the 
heights  and  depths  of  the  moral  system  of  the 
universe.  The  human  mind  gets  a  glimpse  of 
the  idea  that  great  glory,  great  exaltation,  are 
connected  with  such  a  view,  and  that  these  are 
necessarily  associated  with  the  thought  of  great 
peril.  Life  thus  viewed  becomes  a  fearful  thing. 
We  tremble  when  we  think  in  what  an  awfully 


2 A  VEDDER   LECTURES. 

serious  world  we  live ;  and  yet  there  is  a  fascina- 
tion for  the  human  mind,  even  for  the  depraved 
human  mind,  in  the  idea  of  an  infinite  justice  and 
an  infinite  holiness,  though  involving  the ^lought 
of  infinite  severity  towards  the  unholy  and  the 
unjust.  Commensurate  with  it  is  that  other  idea 
of  infinite  goodness  which  the  rational  soul 
affirms  as  a  necessary  attribute  in  the  conception 
of  Deity,  even  though  the  sense-evidence  of  its 
manifestation  may  be  overpowered  by  an  im- 
mense balance  of  seeming  evil  in  the  world  in 
which  we  dwell,  or  even  did  we  find  ourselves  in 
a  department  of  the  universe  where  nothing 
could  be  discerned  but  unalleviated  and  uncom- 
pensated woe.  There  is  something  sublimely 
terrible  to  man  in  the  idea  of  this  perfect  divine 
holiness.  It  so  condemns  us,  whilst  giving  such 
an  awful  dignity  to  our  being  in  its  moral  rela- 
tions to  such  an  attribute.  It  transcends  all  other 
moral  ascriptions.  The  Holy  One !  There  is 
no  language  of  the  Bible,  no  epithet  of  Deity 
that  has  such  an  awe  for  us.  And  yet,  as  1  have 
said,  it  has  a  fascination  for  the  contemplative 
spirit,  even  when  deeply  conscious  of  its  own  un- 
holiness.  The  thought  is  perfectly  conceivable  : 
a  human  soul,  fearful  in  respect  to  its  own 
moral  condition,  trembling  even  under  the  dread 
of   condemnation,  yet   preferring   this   personal 


THE  FEARFULNESS  OF  ATHEISM.  25 

risk  to  the  utter  loss  of  that  glorious  conception 
of  the  ineffable  righteousness,  so  grand  even  for 
the  intellect,  could  we  separate  it  from  the  moral 
emotion.  The  "correlation  of  forces,"  the  high- 
est power  the  materialist  admits  !  How  it  pales 
before  the  sublimity  of  this  theistic  language  : 
*'  The  Righteous  Governor  of  the  Universe." 
The  Holy  One  ''  in  whose  sight  even  the  heavens 
are  not  pure."  There  is,  indeed,  a  fearfulness  in 
the  theistic  thought,  an  awe  even  in  its  aspect 
of  beneficence ;  but  it  is,  at  the  same  time,  the 
ground  of  all  hope,  as  it  is  of  all  human  dignity. 
We  cannot  do  without  it.  We  cannot  lower  it, 
though  it  so  condemns  us. 

But  atheism  is  without  hope,  without  glor}^, 
as  it  is  without  reason.  It  has  its  own  terrors, 
with  nothing  to  calm  them.  It  gives  the  soul  no 
security  against  the  direst  conceivable  evils, 
whilst  it  takes  away  every  moral  ground  or  rea- 
son for  believing  in  any  ultimate  triumph  of 
truth  and  goodness.  Such  a  hope  illumines  the 
darkest  aspect  of  theism.  :  "■  Clouds  and  dark- 
ness are  round  about  God,  but  righteousness  and 
judgment  are  the  foundation  of  His  throne." 
There  is  a  reason  for  everything.  In  the  godless 
vievv  there  is  a  reason  for  nothing.  Every  de- 
structive movement  is  conceivable,  possible,  and 
even  probable, — only  give  it  time  enough,  as  a 


25  VEDDER  LECTURES. 

class  of  scientists  are  so  fond  of  saying.     There 
may   be   retrogradations,    deteriorations,— if  we 
may  use  such  words  where  there  is  no  standard 
according  to  which  they  may  be  reckoned,  no 
hypcrphysical  measure  by  which  they   may  be 
determined.     There   may  be  a   progress,  seem- 
ingly   such,    yet    only    a    progress    in    horror. 
There   is  no  security,  even,  against   the    direst 
forms  of  evil  that  are  feared  or  fancied  as  con- 
nected with  the  religious  view  itself.    This  awful, 
unknown  nature  may  have  its  devil  and  its  hell. 
As  it  has  produced  monsters  in  the  past,  so  may 
it  continue  to  produce  monsters  in  the  future. 
It  may  supersede  man  by  the  evolution  of  a  new 
race,  transcending  in  depravity,  as  it  transcends 
in  strength  and  demonic  sagacity,  the  one  that  for 
six  thousand  years— twenty  thousand,  say  some 
—has  made  this  world  a  Golgotha  of  crime  and 
misery.     If  we  follow  on  the  analogy,  we  cannot 
refuse  to  admit  that  there   may   be   evolved    a 
state  of  things  which  shall  throw  into  the  shade 
the  enormities  of  all  preceding  periods.     Take 
away  the  ideas  for  which  we  are  indebted  to  re- 
lio-ion   and    revelation ;  view    man   simply    as   a 
product   of  nature,   with    no  other   hopes   than 
nature  gives,  and  we  are  safe  in  saying  that  no 
one  of  the  geological  ages  has  surpassed  in  de- 
structive  enormity,  in    irrational   waste  of   life, 


THE  FEARFULNESS  OF  ATHEISM.  27 

the  human  cycle.    Had  we  remained  gorillas,  the 
earth  would  not  have  been  so  filled  with  blood — 
with  crimes  against  nature  exceeding  in  horror 
all    actions    that    beasts    could    commit.       My 
hearers  will  not  mistake  me  here,  nor  misunder- 
stand the  hypothesis  of  total  and   hopeless  irre- 
ligion  on  which  such  statements  of  human  facts 
and  human  possibilities  are  grounded.    We  may 
take  a  step  beyond  this.     Paradoxical  as  the  lan- 
guage seems,  nature  may  produce  a  false  God. 
Give  it  time  enough  and  there  may  come  out  of 
the  physical  evolutions  some  dire  consciousness, 
corresponding   to  that   awful    being  whom  the 
infidel  imagination  gives  us  in  its  deformed  cari- 
cature of  the  Scriptural   Deity — a   power  vast, 
malignant,  irresistible,  having  in  it  the  concen- 
trated evil  drawn  from  all  the  productive  forces 
of   the   universe.      Given   a    past    eternity    for 
nature's  working,  she  may  have  long  since  pro- 
duced such  a  being,  having  his  seat  of  power 
somewhere  in  the  infinite  space,  and  extending 
to  remotest  distances  his  mafignant  rule.     And 
so,  too,  in  regard  to  another  hfe,  another  state  of 
being  for  man.     Irrehgion  sometimes  boasts  that 
she    has    slain    that    chimera     of    superstition. 
Man  may  now  eat  and  drink  without  that  haunt- 
ing fear  of  something  after  death.    But  neither  for 
this  does  atheism   give  security.      The    human 


2g  VEDDER  LECTURES. 

protoplasm  may  live  on,  carrying  with  it  the  hu- 
man consciousness,  the  human  identity.  It  is 
one  of  the  forces  of  the  universe,  and  may  pre- 
serve its  individuahty  in  other  conditions,  or  as 
correlated  to  other  forces.  Science  can  give  no 
security  against  this,  or  against  any  evils  its 
changed  physical  condition  may  involve.  It  may 
still  be  true  that  the  conscious  sensualist  ''  lifts 
up  his  eyes,  being  in  torment" — the  torment  of 
an  unknown  physical  hell. 

Or  we  may  take  another  view  coming  out  of 
Vhat  doctrine  of  atoms  to  which  atheism  has 
run  for  shelter  since  the  days  of  Democritus. 
Although  the  microscope  has  never  made  an  ap- 
proach to  this  mysterious  domain,  never  having 
brought  to  light  an  atom,  or  a  molecule,  or  even  a 
molecular  combination,  yet  here,  in  this  utterly 
unknown  region,  a  certain  kind  of  science  finds 
life,  consciousness,  memory,  thought,  imagination, 
reason,  will — all  that  constitutes  personality  or  in- 
dividuality in  our  present  state  of  being.  We 
are  what  the  atoms  make  us,  nothing  more. 
And  this,  too,  their  making,  resolves  itself  into 
site,  number,  relation — in  a  word,  arrangement  of 
constituent  atomic  points.  We  can  conceive  of 
nothing  else  ;  and  here  the  thinking  of  the  com- 
mon mind  is  as  clear  and  trustworthy  as  that  of 
the   most    scientific,    since    to  both    this   atomic 


THE  FEARFULNESS  OF  ATHEISM.  29 

world  is  alike  unknown.  All  that  we  can  say  is 
that  the  doctrine  gives  no  security  against  that 
dreaded  idea  that  man  may  live  again — may  live 
in  pain,  in  agonies  inconceivable.  Take  time 
enough,  and  apply  to  it  the  mathematical 
doctrine  of  chances,  there  arises  not  merely  a 
possibility,  but  a  high  probability,  growing  ever- 
more nearer  to  an  absolute  certainty,  if  this 
atomic  hypothesis  of  the  origin  of  life  have  any 
truth.  Of  any  individual  man  now  existing  it 
says  that  his  spiritual  powers  are  but  the  results 
of  such  or  such  a  combination  of  these  elements 
of  all  being.  They  make  him  what  he  is,  and  he 
has  no  other  being.  From  them  come  not  only 
his  flowing  body,  but  his  thought,  mind,  will, 
consciousness — yea,  even  what  he  calls  his  rea- 
son, though  that,  too,  is  only  position,  arrange- 
ment, number,  as  much  as  his  sense  or  his  very 
flesh.  Now,  in  the  infinite  tide  of  surging  ma- 
terial being,  these  atoms,  or  precisely  similar 
atoms,  may  come  together  again.  It  is  extreme- 
ly probable,  on  the  doctrine  of  chances,  that  they 
will  come  together  again — the  when  or  the  where 
in  no  way  affecting  the  estimate  or  the  identity  of 
the  being.  They  come  together  just  as  they  were, 
whether  a  moment  before,  or  at  a  time  which  the 
longest  decimal  notation  fails  to  estimate — they 
come  together  at  last,  and  there  he  is  again,  the 


20  VEDDER  LECTURES. 

same  consciousness,  the  same  memory,  or,  so  far 
as  these  constitute  identity  (and  we  cannot  con- 
ceive of  it  separate  from  them),  the  same  identi- 
cal being,  carrying  with  him  all  the  misery  of  his 
former  existence,  enhanced  by  the  absence  of  all 
security  against  ten  thousand  fold  greater  misery 
in  the  future.  There  is  no  hand  at  the  helm  of 
the  universe,  and  there  is  no  telling,  no  conceiv- 
ing the  horrors  into  which  it  may  drift. 

But  there  is  the  idea  of  progress,  say  some — 
progress  continually  tending  towards  a  better 
state,  towards  a  higher  order,  a  higher  happi- 
ness, a  higher  intelligence — in  a  word,  a  higher 
good.  Some  such  dream  meets  us,  now  and 
then,  in  the  writings  of  Herbert  Spencer.  But 
what  is  meant  here  by  higher  and  lower?  To 
determine  this,  in  respect  to  any  movement,  we 
w^ant  a  standard,  a  rule,  a  direction,  out  of  and 
higher  than  such  movement.  If  there  is  nothing 
transcending  nature,  nothing  outside  of  nature, 
nothing  for  which  nature  itself  exists,  how  then 
are  Ave  to  measure  it,  or  ascertain  its  tendencies  ? 
We  are  in  the  balloon  ;  no  star  above  is  seen ; 
how  know  we  whither  it  is  going  ?  We  have  no 
sighting  point  for  our  survey.  Progress  towards 
what?  This  must  always  remain  the  question. 
And  then,  even  if  we  can  get  a  measure,  or  fix  a 
direction,    what    assurance   against    retrograda- 


THE  FEARFULNESS  OF  ATHEISM.  31 

tions  or  deteriorations  ?  Everything  in  the 
smaller  nature,  or  natures,  that  fall  under  the  eye 
of  our  science,  presents  the  turning  or  cyclical 
aspect.  Birth,  growth,  decay,  death,  dissolution, 
we  can  conceive  a  reason  for  them  as  explained 
by  the  relation  of  things  to  a  sphere  above 
nature  ;  we  can  believe  that  they  have  a  counter- 
acter,  or  a  regulator,  or  a  compensation,  or  some 
clearly-explained  end  in  some  higher  system  of 
ideas.  Without  this,  how^ever,  there  is  no  resist- 
ing the  analogy  that  drives  us  on  to  extend  this 
law  of  growth  and  decay,  of  cyclical  change,  to 
the  universal  nature  as  well  as  to  the  smaller 
natures  that  always  exhibit  it  as  far  as  our  induc- 
tion extends.  The  whole  cosmos  may  wax  old 
and  decay.  Scientists  were  once  puzzled  with 
the  apparent  anomalies  of  the  solar  system,  such 
as  change  in  aphelion  and  perihelion,  shortening 
of  orbits  in  one  direction,  undue  lengthening  of 
them  in  another,  all  indications  of  disorder  that 
might  terminate  in  remediless  decay  and  final 
ruin.  La  Place,  it  is  said,  showed  the  contrary 
of  this — that  is,  he  proved  the  perpetual  stabil- 
ity of  the  solar  system.  Apparent  disorders 
had  their  maxima  and  minima,  and  thus  the  great 
order  would  go  on  for  ever.  But,  admitting  that 
he  had  shown  this,  or  something  like  it,  in  re- 
gard   to   the  solar  system  as  a   thing   by  itself, 


92  VEDDER  LECTURES. 

separated  from  the  universal  cosmos,  and  having- 
its  own  correlation  of  forces — admitting  that  all 
its  apparent  irregularities  were  counteracting 
checks  to  each  other,  so  that  none  of  its  mem- 
bers would,  by  means  of  them,  ever  get  too  far 
from  the  sun,  and  thus  be  thrown  off  as  wander- 
ers in  space,  or  too  near,  and  thus  be  drawn  into 
the  vortex  of  its  consuming  fires — admitting  all 
this,  we  say,  his  purely  mathematical  argument, 
though  holding  true  of  the  data  immediately 
before  him,  did  not  take  into  account  other  dis- 
orders, other  decays,  other  redundancies,  other 
retrogressions  that  might  have  their  causal  force 
in  the  internal  constitution  of  each  member.  Ac- 
cording to  the  present  nebular  and  ring  hypothe- 
sis, they  had  been  for  countless  ages  throwing  off 
their  heat,  radiating  into  infinite  space,  cooling, 
condensing,  diminishing  in  magnitude,  increasing 
in  density,  changing  their  relative  distances  and 
attractions.  The  great  central  body  had,  during 
the  same  countless  ages,  been  undergoing  in- 
calculable transformations.  It  was,  therefore,  an 
argument  purely  mathematical,  purely  hypothet- 
ical, based  on  assumed  magnitudes,  masses, 
densities,  and  mean  distances,  as  they  are  now 
seen,  or  supposed  to  be.  It  did  not  take  into  ac- 
count— it  could  not  take  into  account — other  dis- 
ordering influences    that  might  come  from   the 


THE  FEARFULNESS  OF  ATHEISM.  33 

unnumbered  bodies  floating  in  infinite  space 
outside  the  solar  system.  It  overlooked  the 
vaster  revolutions  and  evolutions  in  which  our 
system  and  our  earth  must  participate,  however 
slow  the  changes  that  might  thereby  be  pro- 
duced in  the  relations  of  its  parts,  or  however 
imperceptible  the  motions  determinative,  at  any 
time,  of  its  own  absolute  place  in  the  universe. 
These  are  views  to  which  the  most  modern 
observation  is  now  forcing  us.  If  trustworthy, 
they  give  us  a  glimpse  of  an  immeasurable  un- 
known, in  relation  to  which  our  science,  now  so 
greatly  lauded,  is  truly  a  smaller  thing  than  was 
the  knowledge  of  Ptolemy,  as  compared  with 
that  which  was  revealed  in  the  first  discoveries 
of  the  telescope.  The  ancient  centre  is  again  un- 
settled, but  the  true  centre  is  as  far  as  ever  from 
being  fixed.  As  thus  compared,  infinitesimal  is 
the  enlargement  of  our  knowledge,  infinitesimal 
is  any  fancied  increase  in  the  value  of  our  cosmic- 
al  speculations.  One  word,  one  promise,  one 
whispered  hope  that  we  can  believe  in  as  coming 
to  us  from  the  Infinite  Father,  is  more  than  worth 
it  all.  We  have  learned  distances,  motions, — we 
have  a  dream  of  correlated  forces ;  that  is  the 
sum  of  our  attainment.  It  is  almost  wholly 
mathematical.  La  Place,  with  his  Mechanique 
Celeste,  is  as  small  here  as  Hipparchus.     In  one 


34 


VEDDER  LECTURES. 


sense  he  is  far  behind  Pythagoras  with  his 
sublime  imagination  of  the  "  music  of  the 
spheres." 

But  waiving  all  that  as  utterly  beyond  our 
reach,  let  us  proceed  to  other  and  more  general 
considerations.  We  remember  how  this  view  of 
La  Place  in  respect  to  the  stability  of  the  solar 
system  was  hailed  by  the  Christian  world.  It 
was,  however,  on  the  ground  of  its  furnishing, 
or  its  being  supposed  to  furnish,  to  those  who 
needed  it,  an  argument  for  a  divine  idea,  a  divine 
care,  in  the  originating  and  in  the  adjustment  of 
our  solar  system.  It  was  the  work  of  the  great 
geometrician,  as  Socrates  styles  him.  Not  so  La 
Place  himself.  He  may  have  smilingly  accepted 
the  gratitude  of  the  pleased  religionist,  but  he 
saw  no  hand  of  God  in  the  cosmos.  The  heav- 
ens told  the  glory  of  the  French  astronomer, 
not  of  the  Great  Architect  above.  Their  interest 
lay  in  furnishing  the  diagram,  the  black-board, 
as  we  may  style  it,  for  his  mathematical  specula- 
tions. They  were  filled  only  with  sines  and 
cosines,  tangents,  differentials,  integrals,  infinite 
series,  relations  simply  of  number,  figure,  dis- 
tance, motion,  space  ;  empty  of  all  else.  To  him 
this  principle  of  counteracting  order,  of  assumed 
stability,  belonged  to  nature  itself;  and  that  was 
something  he  could  never  prove.     An  inherent 


THE  FEARFULNESS  OF  ATHEISM. 


35 


power  of  recov^ery,  or  of  rising  from  a  really 
lower  to  a  really  higher  state,  an  inherent  rectifi- 
cation of  a  real  disorder,  without  aid  from  a 
plane  above  the  natural — such  a  property  as  this 
no  science  could  ev^er  demonstrate.  The  might- 
iest application  of  the  calculus  fails  here.  Mathe- 
matical theory  and  induction  are  both  unable  to 
show  that  any  great  section  of  nature,  much  less 
the  great  whole  of  nature,  is  exempt  from  the 
principle  of  growth,  maximum,  decay — in  a 
word,  of  a  necessary  finiteness,  which  the  smaller 
inductions  have  invariably  proved  to  belong  to 
every  partial  nature,  from  the  plant  to  the  grow- 
ing, decaying,  and  disruptured  planet.  The 
condition  of  growth  seems  to  necessitate  that 
of  decay.  The  force  required  to  keep  an  organ- 
ism at  its  maximum  must  be  greater  than  that 
required  to  reach  it ;  since  all  beyond  must  be 
an  addition,  a  coming  of  more  from  less,  which 
is  the  same  with  something  from  nothing.  The 
coiled  spring  must  first  relax  its  tension,  and 
then  return  with  more  or  less  rapidity  in  its 
recoil  to  its  former  state.  So  that  which  has  no 
other  origin  than  a  nebula  in  its  lowest  state  of 
material  existence,  and  no  other  law  of  its  being 
than  the  condensation,  or  the  unwinding  of  that 
nebula,  whichever  view  we  take,  forbids  the  idea 
of  eternal  progress,  or  of  unchanging  movement 


36  VEDDER  LECTURES. 

in  cither  direction.  It  must  have  its  cycle,  re- 
turning through  all  changes,  either  to  perish,  or 
to  make  again  the  same  revolution,  thus  accom- 
plishing a  cycle  of  cycles,  in  which  each  maxi- 
mum is  continually  less  than  the  preceding,  until 
it  goes  out,  or  is  lost,  or  assumes  some  new  form 
in  the  great  whole  of  forces,  therein  to  repeat  a 
series  of  similar  perishing  revolutions.  Whatever 
grows  may  decay — must  decay.  So  induction 
teaches,  if  it  is  to  be  our  only  guide.  Now  it  is  a 
peculiar  feature  of  the  modern  scientific  infidel- 
ity, that  it  assumes  this  of  the  universe.  The  cos- 
mos groivs  as  well  as  the  fungus.  Solar  systems, 
stellar  systems,  all  came  out  of  that  lowest  state 
called  the  nebula.  Science  can  show  no  leap  in 
the  process  of  growth  and  decay,  no  point  where 
perpetuity  necessarily  comes  in,  or  the  analogy 
permits  us  to  stop  short  of  the  idea  that  there  is  in 
nature,  even  as  a  whole,  a  necessary  finiteness  of 
force,  however  vast  the  extent  of  space  through 
which  its  manifestations  may  be  dispersed.  It 
must  run  round,  and  finally  run  out,  whether  to 
come  up  again,  or  come  out  again,  as  the  old  Stoics 
maintained  in  their  doctrine  of  rarefactions,  or  to 
be  no  more  for  ever.  The  necessarily  infinite* 
alone  remaineth  ad  etcrnum,  whilst  all  things 
below  the  infinite  must  have  the  measure  and  the 
uses  that  it  appointeth   to   them.      "  The   grass 


THE  FEARFULNESS   OF  ATHEISM.  37 

withereth,  the  flower  facleth,"  nature  comes  and 
goes,  but  "  the  Word  of  the  Lord  abideth  for  ever." 
All  that  is  not  God  is  necessarily  finite,  except  as 
He  sustains,  restores,  perpetuates. 

The  reasoning  of  Plato  here,  and  to  some  ex- 
tent of  Aristotle,  can  never  be  refuted.  I  refer 
to  the  great  argument  of  the  latter  philosopher 
by  which  he  proves  the  necessity  of  the  anivriroq, 
the  Immovable,  as  a  principle  lying  above  mo- 
tion and  the  movable ;  in  other  words,  an  infinite 
mind,  an  eternal  thought,  as  the  only  ground  of 
stabihty  in  the  universe.  So  Plato  shows  that 
the  existence  of  antagonisms,  or  the  generation 
of  opposites,  or  correlations  of  forces  in  nature, 
must  come  from  something  above  the  plane  of 
the  physical.  For  although  such  seeming  equi- 
libriums may  be  produced,  as  it  were,  by  partial 
currents,  or  counteracting  eddies,  in  the  same 
movement,  yet  nature  as  a  wJiole  can  never  of 
herself  generate  a  direction  above  that,  or  the 
opposite  of  that,  in  which  she  is  tending,  and 
which,  unless  counteracted  or  regulated  by  a 
power  from  without,  must  inevitably  bring  her 
to  a  suicidal  end.  It  is  idle  to  say  that  these 
men,  great  thinkers  as  they  were,  had  not 
science  enough  to  warrant  them  in  making  such 
declarations.  The  whole  question  lies  above  any 
sphere  of  science,  or  fact  induction,  even   were 


38  VEDDER  LECTURES. 

not  the  comparative  difference  here  between  the 
ancient  and  modern  knowledge  the  infinitesi- 
mal we  have  shown  it  to  be.  The  illustrations, 
too,  presented  by  these  old  authorities,  are  as 
good  as  any  that  are  furnished  by  the  vocabu- 
lary of  our  modern  progress.  \i  genesis,  devel- 
opment, says  Plato,  or  what  we  call  evolution, 
or  progressive  movement,  were  ever  evdda, 
straight  onwards,  in  one  direction,  it  must 
finally  tend  to  extinction.  Whatever  the  princi- 
ple, be  it  rarefaction  or  condensation,  sepa- 
ration or  combination,  cold  or  heat,  cooHng  or 
heating,  it  must,  in  the  one  case,  reach  a  state 
where  all  cohesion,  all  organization  ceases,  or, 
in  the  other,  come  to  a  stand  in  which  all  life, 
all  motion,  terminates  in  absolute  immobility. 
Or,  to  use  his  own  most  expressive  language, 
*'  things  would  cease  becoming  and  genesis  would 
be  at  an  end."  In  more  modern  terms,  the  cor- 
relation of  forces,  if  given  an  eternity  to  work 
in,  would  at  last  produce  an  absolute  equilib- 
rium, a  state  of  rest  which  is  the  maximum  of 
force,  even  as  motion,  on  the  other  hand,  or  re- 
garded as  a  departure  from  this  state,  is  ever 
a  spending  or  letting  out  of  force,  and  must 
terminate  in  the  absolute  nothingness  of  iner- 
tia. Hence,  that  the  cosmos  may  five,  says  the  phi- 
losopher, there  must  be*at  some  point  or  points. 


THE  FEARFULNESS  OF  ATHEISM.  ^q 

a  Kaii-KT]^  or  turning  round,  a  deviation  from  the 
progress  or  tendency  in  which  it  is  going,  a 
change  from  one  law  or  from  one  movement  to 
another,  and  this  can  be  no  product  of  that  law, 
or  that  movement,  from  which  it  is  turned. 
There  may  be  such  a  seeming  law  of  cyclicity, 
or  self-regulating  cyclical  return,  in  the  partial 
natures;  but  in  them  it  must  come  from  other 
partial  natures  without,  which,  at  certain  points, 
connect  with  and  counteract,  thus  causing  par- 
tial deviations.  As  applied,  however,  to  a  na- 
ture regarded  as  universal,  and  having  nothing 
outside  of  it,  this  idea,  of  course,  cannot  be  ad- 
mitted. There,  the  result  of  such  a  right  on- 
ward movement  is  demonstratively  inevitable. 
Nothing  can  save  from  it  but  the  supposition 
of  dynamical  laws,  that  is,  principles  of  motion 
and  force,  utterly  different  from  those  our  best 
science  acknowledges  in  physical  and  cosmical 
investigations.  Gravitation  must  destroy  itself, 
if  there  be  no  principle,  higher,  remoter,  stronger, 
in  the  universe. 

The  perverseness  of  an  atheistic  science  may 
drive  us  to  a  mode  of  argument  that  seems 
labored  and  abstract;  but  it  is  in  order  to  meet 
this  perverseness  on  its  own  ground.  The  truth 
must  be  something  more  simple  than  this — 
something   which    the    common,    healthy  mind 


40  VEDDER   LECTURES. 

perceives,  as  well  as  the  most  reflective  and 
logical.  It  cannot  be  that  God,  who  made  the 
human  intellect,  could  have  intended  that  the 
proof  of  His  own  existence,  of  His  own  intel- 
lect, we  may  say,  should  be  so  difficult,  or  so 
little  obvious,  as  to  allow  the  soul  to  have, 
even  for  a  moment,  an  excuse  for  its  scepticism. 
We  should  never  depart  from  the  intuitive  idea 
that  in  motion,  in  change  of  any  kind,  in  the 
least  phenomenal  deviation  of  anything  (whether 
whole  or  part)  from  a  former  state,  there  is 
evidence  of  will  somewhere  in  space  and  time, 
of  a  purpose  and  a  volition  without  which  such 
deviation  never  would  have  been,  however  many, 
or  however  undiscoverable,  the  connecting  links 
of  causation.  We  should  hold  to  this  as  a 
proof  preceding  any  that  we  draw  from  the 
more  recondite  field  of  organic  life.  In  truth, 
once  admit  motion,  self-motion,  to  be  a  prop- 
erty of  matter,  and  it  is  not  easy  to  deny  that 
life  also  may  be  such.  It  is  not  easy  to  dis- 
tinguish between  life  and  self-motion.  Hence 
Aristotle,  in  the  argument  referred  to,  begins  at 
the  beginning.  Motion  demands  a  mover,  and 
that  ultimately  a  prime  mover,  itself  unmoved 
and  immovable,  or  a  will  originating  motion, 
itself  outside  of  any  moving  chain  of  cause  and 
effect.     In  the  same  w\iy  the  argument  of  Soc- 


THE  FEARFULNESS  OF  ATHEISM. 


41 


rates  against  the  atheists  in  the  Tenth  book  of 
the  Laws.  Motion  is  proof  of  soul.  In  an  after-* 
state,  clearer  perhaps  intellectually,  because 
purer  morally,  we  may  wonder  at  ourselves  for 
ever  allowing*  this  intuition  to  be  obscured. 
Then  may  we  feel,  as  we  have  never  felt  before, 
the  reasonableness  of  that  chiding,  though  gen- 
tle remonstrance  :  "  O  ye  of  little  faith,  where- 
fore did  you  doubt  ?  " 

The  sceptical  scientists  are  very  fond  of  draw- 
ing on  time.  If  any  form  of  "  evolution "  be 
insisted  on,  or  of  "  natural  selection,"  or  any 
adjustment  ol  atoms  driven  by  chance,  and  after 
infinite  misses  and  infinite  incongruities  falling, 
at  last,  into  something  to  which  we  give  the 
name  of  order — the  demand  is  ever  for  time, 
more  time.  If  we  do  not  see  species  coming  out 
of  species,  or  any  of  the  half-way  transition  pro- 
cesses, then  science  becomes  humble  again  ;  we 
are  reminded  of  the  limited  observations  neces- 
sarily inadequate  for  such  a  vast  induction.  Only 
grant  time  enough,  and  we  can  prove  the  pos- 
sible happening  of  anything  conceivable.  Now 
this  accommodating  demand  may  be  turned  the 
other  way,  and  to  the  confusion  of  those  who 
are  most  fond  of  making  it.  They  would  keep 
it  within  some  bounds  of  the  decimal  notation. 
Billions,    trillions,     decillions,     might,    perhaps, 


42  VEDDER   LECTURES. 

satisfy  their  very  modest  hypotheses.  But  as 
against  them,  we  may  draw  at  once  on  the 
bank  of  eternity.  How  long  before  we  reach  it, 
or  even  make  an  approach  to  it,  ought  an  infinite, 
ever  right-onward  moving  nature  to  have  passed 
over  the  finite,  the  very  finite,  progress  to  which 
we  see  she  has  now  arrived.  Or,  whatever  may 
be  the  direction  she  is  taking,  at  what  an 
ancient  time  in  the  long-past  eternity,  must  she 
have  to  come  to  its  ultimatum,  if  there  be  no 
hand  to  make  the  turn  of  which  Socrates  speaks. 
How  many  ages  ago  must  there  have  been  reached 
the  immovable  equilibrium  or  the  irrecoverable 
dispersion?  An  eternity  before  our  day  must 
this  binding  or  loosing — for  motion  is  ever  the 
spending  of  force — have  brought  all  things  to 
their  maximum  of  solidity  or  their  minimum  of 
rarefaction ;  in  both  of  which  states  all  life  per- 
ishes, all  motion  and  resistance  as  the  very  con- 
ditions of  manifested  sentient  being.  The  machine 
has  run  down,  or  run  out.  It  is  a  consequence 
of  that  finiteness  which  necessarily  belongs  to 
everything  moving  in  time  and  space.  At  such  a 
juncture,  the  Platonic  myth  in  the  Politicus  sup- 
poses the  hand  of  Deity  again  to  take  the  helm. 
On  the  hypothesis  that  excludes  such  a  control- 
ling and  restoring  idea,  nature,  or  the  physical 
universe,   has  come  to  a  dead-lock  from  which 


THE  FEARFULNESS  OF  ATHEISM.  43 

there  is  no  renewal.  If  we  take  it  in  one  direc- 
tion, the  result,  as  has  been  already  said,  is  a 
balance  of  forces,  a  static  equilibrium  of  resistance, 
which  is  only  another  name  for  absolute  rest.  If 
we  follow  it  in  the  other,  the  only  idea  left  is  that 
of  utter  dispersion,  which  is  only  another  form 
of  absolute  inertia.  Thus  are  we  driven  to  the 
thought  of  a  power  outside  of  and  above  nature, 
a  power  demanded  for  its  conservation  and  res- 
toration as  much  as  for  its  primal  origin.  "  Of 
old  hast  thou  founded  the  earth  ;  the  heavens  are 
the  work  of  Thy  hands.  They  perish,  but  Thou 
remainest.  As  a  garment  do  they  wear  out ; 
Thou  renewest  them,  and  they  are  renewed. 
But  Thou  art  HE  (the  same),  and  of  Thy  times 
there  is  no  end." 

But,  aside  from  any  such  reasoning,  the  doc- 
trine of  progress,  in  which  the  atheistic  scientist 
takes  refuge  to  escape  the  horror  of  his  own  con- 
clusions, or  this  tendency  to  a  higher  and  better 
state  which  Matthew  Arnold  describes  as  "a 
making  for  righteousness,"  is  all  a  sheer  assump- 
tion. How  do  they  know  whither  nature,  the 
universal  nature,  is  going,  or  whether  it  be  up  or 
down  ?  Certainly  not  from  any  induction.  The 
atheist,  or  scientific  atheist,  is  very  fond  of  talking 
of  the  vast  extent  of  the  cosmos  ;  he  very  confi- 
dently compares  his  own  views   in   this  respect 


44 


VEDDER  LECTURES. 


with  what  he  deems  the  rehgious  narrowness  ; 
but  as  related  to  the  whole,  of  which  he  so  pre- 
sumptiously judges,  what  is  the  mighty  difference 
between  his  knowledge  of  the  universe,  as  taken 
in  all  directions,  and  that  of  the  most  ignorant 
religionist  of  ancient  or  modern  times?  We 
speak,  of  course,  comparatively.  Franklin's  wise 
ephemeron,  drawing  his  inferences  as  to  all  sur- 
rounding being  from  the  vernal  or  autumnal 
changes  in  the  leaf  on  which  he  sits,  would  pre- 
sent the  most  apt  illustration  of  this  folly.  Or 
we  may  imagine  the  tiny  insect  crawling  in  the 
great  Haarlem  organ.  He  may  be  a  most  scien- 
tific insect,  possessing  the  keenest  sense,  endowed 
with  a  vision  surpassing  all  the  powers  of  the 
microscope.  There  is  nothing  in  his  minuteness 
at  war  with  the  supposition  of  his  having  a  most 
mathematical  brain,  which  nature,  or  the  colloca- 
tion of  the  atoms,  or  some  nice  adjustment  in  the 
correlation  of  his  vital  forces,  may  have  bounti- 
fully given  to  him.  There  he  sits,  with  all  the  ma- 
terials for  a  Mechanique  Celeste  in  the  smaller, 
that  La  Place  possessed  for  the  supposed  wider 
sphere.  He  is  intent  on  the  study  of  strings  and 
pipes,  and  the  most  minute  adaptations  of  the 
mighty  apparatus,  so  far  as  his  angle  of  vision  can 
take  in  an  almost  infinitesimal  part.  He  sees  the 
valves  open  and  shut ;  he  traces,  for  an  inch  or 


THE   FEARFULNESS  OF  ATHEISM.  45 

two,  the  cords  by  which  these  effects  seem  pro- 
duced ;  he  begins  to  classify  them  and  to  talk  of 
laws,  thus   turning   phenomena  into  forces,  and 
dignifying    mere   sequences    with    the    name    of 
causes.    His  induction  may  rise  to  the  conception 
of    mightier   pipes,    of    more    distant    keys,    of 
deeper  valves,  of  hidden  strings;  but  he  never  in 
this    way   gets   out  of    the    machine.     It   is,   all 
through,  as  far  as  he  can  see,  adaptation  for  the 
sake  of  adaptation,  evolution  for  the  sake  of  evo- 
lution.     But  what  is  it  all  about?     Sometimes, 
as  Tyndall  occasionally  confesses,  he  may  have 
his  hour  of  weakness.     Now  and  then  his  cere- 
bral organization  may  become  strangely  impress- 
ed with  the  idea  of  something  haunting  the  ma- 
chinery, or  that  there  is  "  a  spirit  in  the  wheels  " 
— a  blowing,  or  breathing  in  the    pipes,  which 
none  of  the  sense-causalties  before  him   can  ex- 
plain.    There   comes   the   faint  consciousness  of 
some  vibrating  tremor  in  the  vast  surrounding 
apparatus.     It  startles  him  with  the  idea  of  some- 
thing greater  than  he  sees.     It  may  be  the  hope 
of  a  grander  being,  or  a  sense  of  danger  filling 
him    with    alarm.      There    is    something    more 
serious  in  the  machine  than  he  had  imagined.    Is 
it  a  dream — a  dream  that  he  is  dreaming,  it  may 
be — and  from  which  h^e   shall  awake  to  a  higher 
consciousness?     There  may  come,  as  from  a  far 


46  VEDDER  LECTURES. 

distance,  the  faint  sound  of  a  mighty  music,  of  a 
glorious  anthem  roUing  above.  Or  there  may 
arise  in  his  insect  soul,  or  in  some  way  be  given 
to  it,  the  idea  of  a  higher  world,  a  more  real 
world,  to  which  this  intricate  valvular  apparatus 
may  be  subservient,  and  from  which  it  derives  all 
its  value.  But  this  he  soon  dismisses  as  utterly 
unscientific.  He  returns  again  to  "  common 
sense,"  to  confidence  in  his  sharp  eye,  his  grop- 
ing touch.  "  The  things  that  are  seen  ;"  they  are 
the  only  realities  after  all.  "  The  things  unseen  " 
— all  that  is  supersensual — they  belong  to  the 
world  of  phantoms  which  experimental  science 
— the  only  science — can  never  admit. 

The  illustration  is  a  fair  one.  From  induction 
alone  it  is  impossible  to  determine  whether  this 
physical  apparatus  in  which  we  are  involved,  out 
of  which  we  are  evolved,  and  into  which  bur 
seeming  individuality  is  soon  to  be  resolved  again, 
is  really  tending  to  order  or  disorder,  or  towards 
anything  we  might  indulge  our  fancy  in  calling 
higher  or  lower  states  of  being.  The  very  terms 
point  to  something  out  of  the  physical,  above  the 
physical — something  which  measures  nature,  but 
can  never  be  measured  by  it. 

Such  a  comparison  is  unimpeachable  as  long  as 
we  take  for  its  basis  any  conceivable  ratio  be- 
tween the  infinitesimally  known  and  the  infinite 


THE  FEARFULNESS  OF  A  THEISM.  47 

unknown.  To  vary  the  illustration,  however,  let 
us  suppose  an  almost  invisible  insect  crawling 
upon  the  dome  of  St.  Peter's.  He  possesses  a 
sense  of  vision  keener  than  the  human.  His 
•microscopic  eye  does,  indeed,  see  chasms,  and 
roughnesses,  and  inequalities,  which  may  disap- 
pear to  a  survey  made  from  a  higher  standpoint ; 
but  what  does  it  tell  him  of  the  purpose  for  which 
that  vast  structure  was  reared  ?  What  does  it 
tell  him  of  its  transcending  spiritual  significance  ? 
Or,  to  confine  the  thought  to  what  might  be 
deemed,  in  strictness,  the  more  proper  scientific 
field,  what  does  it  tell  him  even  of  the  space  or 
mathematical  direction  of  his  seeming  progress, 
or  whether  he  is  moving  on  a  surface  ascending 
or  descending,  concave  or  conv^ex,  or  whether, 
taken  as  a  whole,  it  may  be  called  plane  or 
spherical,  or  at  what  rate  the  vast  arc,  to  which 
his  short  vision  can  draw  no  tangential  line,  may 
be  changing  its  mighty  curvature. 

Equally  preposterous  is  the  claim  that  is  made 
to  determine,  by  any  scientific  induction,  the  move- 
ment and  direction  of  the  cosmos  in  any  higher 
aspect  that  we  may  call  spiritual,  moral,  meta- 
physical, ideal — or  even  in  that  lower  view  which 
excludes  all  but  the  physical  as  exhibited  solely 
in  the  phenomena  of  motion  and  force.  Even  if 
the  things  immediately  around  us  presented  no 


48  VEDDER  LECTURES. 

anomalies  or  unevennesses,  no  apparent  retrogres- 
sions or  deteriorations,  what  help  do  our  second 
of  time  and  our  inch  of  space  give  us  towards 
determining  anj  present  state,  or  future  tenden- 
cies, or  final  evolution,  of  that  great  whole  of 
being  of  which  we  form,  physically,  so  insignifi- 
cant a  part?  The  believer  may  legitimately 
connect  such  an  idea  of  progress  with  that  of  a 
physical  world  subordinate  to  a  moral  probation, 
and  the  theatre,  ultimately,  of  a  high  moral  pro- 
duction. This  is  in  true  harmony  with  the 
thought  of  the  cosmos  as  the  work,  through 
»vhatever  process  of  origination  and  continuance, 
of  a  personal  Deit}^,  infinitely  strong,  infinitely 
•ivise,  infinitely  just  and  good.  It  matters  not 
whether  we  say  this  comes  from  revelation,  or 
has  some  claim  to  be  regarded  as  an  a  priori 
idea  of  the  human  soul,  or  whether  we  regard 
both  these  supposed  sources  as  substantially  the 
same.  If  the  latter,  or  the  a  priori  view  is  pre- 
ferred, it  would  denote  simply  something  mir- 
rored in  the  finite  from  the  infinite  mind,  or  a 
reflection  from  that  image  of  God  of  which  the 
Scriptures  speak.  On  either  view,  naturalistic, 
theological,  or  metaphysical,  thought,  ideas,  are  a 
priori  somehow,  and  somewhere.  One  position 
is  that  they  existed  in  a  necessary,  an  eternal, 
and  an  infinite  mind,  before   they   came  into  the 


THE  FEARFULNESS  OF  A  THEISM.  ^g 

human,  carrying-  with  them  some  recognizing 
glimpse  of  their  necessity  and  infinity.  The 
other  hkewise  necessitates  what  may  be  called  an 
a  priori  being-,  but  of  an  infinitely  lower  kind.  It 
would  consist  in  those  arrangements  of  atoms,^ 
and  those  correlations  of  forces,  which,  when 
brought  out  in  the  lucky  confluences  of  im- 
measurable time,  might  constitute  the  individ- 
ual man..  We  all  had  our  primeval  being  in 
the  nebula  ;  we  were  all  born  out  of  it,  as  it  will 
be  to  all  of  us  the  grave  of  our  existence.  But 
with  a  priori  or  necessary  ideas  in  any  other 
sense,  the  positivist  has  nothing  to  do.  He  de- 
nies their  existence.  He  assigns  them  to  the 
chimaera  region  of  metaphysics  and  theology. 
He  goes  by  experiment,  in  a  word,  by  sense,  ac- 
knowledging no  higher  source  for  any  human 
thought.  When  he  talks,  therefore,  of  progress, 
as  Spencer  is  compelled  to  do,  or  of  an  inherent 
''  tendency  that  makes  for  righteousness,"  to  use 
some  of  Mathew  Arnold's  favorite  Hugo,  he  goes 
entirely  out  of  the  sphere  to  which  the  funda- 
mentals of  his  philosophy  necessarily  limit  all 
human  knowledge.  He  is  trespassing  on  another 
province  of  which,  at  other  times  he  affects  to 
speak  Avith  contempt. 

It   would    have   been    more  wise,    it    may  be 
thought,  to  have  taken  for  the  subject  of  this  lec- 
3 


CO  VEDDER  LECTURES, 

ture  a  nearer  and  more  threatening  form  of  infi- 
delity. But  atheism  is  the  goal  to  which  it  all 
is  running,  even  as  all  irreligion  is  a  dislike  to  the 
idea  of  a  personal  God.  We  may  rejoice,  how- 
ever, that  it  carries  its  antidote  along  with  it. 
There  is  nothing,  perhaps,  that  will  ultimately 
better  subserve  the  cause  of  religious  belief  than 
the  last  published  work  of  Strauss.  After  re- 
iterated denials,  and  long  struggles  with  the 
vortex  into  which  he  saw  himself  irresistibly 
drawn,  it  is  pure  atheism  at  last — blank,  unquali- 
fied atheism.  The  English  scientific  sceptics 
seem  drawing  back,  but  Strauss  has  pushed  on  to 
the  ultimatum,  and  it  stands  before  us  in  all  its 
horrors.  Nothing  that  I  have  said  of  the  awful 
desolation  of  a  soul  that  comes  fairly  to  see  what 
it  is  to  be  "  without  hope  and  without  God  in  the 
world,"  presents  such  an  appalling  picture  as  he 
himself  has  given  us  after  announcing  his  utter 
loss  of  faith  in  God.  All  his  philosophy,  all  his 
logic,  all  his  scholarship,  yield  their  latest  fruit, 
their  only  fruit,  in  such  an  utterance  as  this :  ''  In 
the  enormous  machine  of  the  universe,  amid  the 
incessant  whirl  and  hiss  of  its  jagged  iron  wheels 
— amid  the  deafening  crash  of  its  ponderous 
stamps  and  hammers — in  the  midst  of  this  terrific 
commotion,  man,  a  helpless  and  defenseless  crea- 
ture,   finds    himself    placed — not    secure    for   a 


THE  FEARFULNESS  OF  ATHEISM. 


51 


moment,  that  on  some  unguarded  motion,  a 
wheel  may  not  seize  and  rend  him,  or  a  hammer 
crush  him  to  powder.  This  sense  of  abandon- 
ment is  at  first  something  awful."  Yes,  we  may 
say,  not  only  at  first,  but  evermore,  the  more  it  is 
contemplated,  growing  denser  in  its  gloom,  more 
suggestive  of  that  fearful  language  of  the  Scrip- 
ture, ''  the  blackness  of  darkness  forever."  In 
other  places  Strauss  would  modify  the  horror 
of  such  a  view  by  throwing  himself  upon  some 
of  those  a  priori  ideas  of  ultimate  order,  to  which, 
as  we  have  seen,  he  and  his  confreres  have  no 
right.  But  in  this  terrific  passage,  he  reminds  us 
of  that  wild,  despairing  farewell  to  nature,  which 
the  prince  of  Grecian  dramatists  puts  into  the 
mouth  of  the  Jove-defying  Titan,  as  amidst 
storm  and  earthquake  he  goes  down  into  the 
unfathomable  subterranean  deeps : 

didrip  KOLvov  (pdog  el?ilaGO)v, 
EGopdg  1^  G)q  EKdtKa  Tcd(7X(^. 

O  thou,  my  awful  mother  earth,  and  thou, 

Aetherial  sphere  unrolling  evermore 

The  common  light !     Behold  ye  my  dark  doom  ? 

There  is  no  escape  from  the  terrible  machinery 
which  Strauss  so  vividly  depicts,  and  all  the  hor- 
rors it  involves — these  horrors,  too,  made  im- 
mensely greater  for  man  from  the  fact  that  he 


t2  VEDDER  LECTURES. 

has  the  Promethean  fire  of  reason  to  contemplate 
his  inevitable  ruin,  and  just  science   enough  to 
show  him  how  very  little  his  science  avails  to 
save  him  from  these  '*  jagged  wheels,"  or   how 
very  little  his  feeble  reforms — opening  the  way 
often  to  a  more   dire  disorder — or  his  transient 
'*  victories  over  nature,"  as   he   calls  them,  can 
avert  the   greatest,  and  sometimes  the  least,  of 
her   catastrophes.     The  thought  of  the  immor- 
tahty  of  the  race,  even  if  there  were  any  hope  or 
consolation  in  that,  is  as  groundless  as  any  other 
part  of  this  sad  speculation.     What  do  ''  the  mer- 
ciless   wheels"   or  ''ponderous  hammers"   care 
for  races?     Of  how  many,  in  the  past,  has  the  die 
been  broken  and  cast  away  !     The  race,  as  well 
as  the  individual,  may  be  caught  on  some  of  these 
"jagged   points,"    or   crushed    by    the    defacing 
'' stamps  "  of  these  remorseless  evolutions.     We 
fly  for  refuge  to  the  merciful  anthropopathisms 
of  the  Bible :  ''  He  knoweth  our  frame ;  He  re- 
members that  we  are  dust;  He  careth  for  us." 
But  what  does  nature  know  or  care  ?     It  is  all 
darkness — all  horror.    No  retributions  of  religion 
are  so  terrible  as  this  atheistic  creed  ;  no  super- 
stition presents  so  fearful  a  ground  of  alarm  ;  for 
with  these  is  ever  associated  some  consohng  idea 
of  propitiation.     A  stern  Judge,  an    unyielding 
moral  law,  a  fearful  danger  as  arising  out  of  a 


THE  FEARFULNESS  OF  ATHEISM.  53 

relation  having  so  much  of  moral  dignity — these 
have  in  them,  for  a  rational  being,  more  of  hope, 
less  of  pain  and  despair,  than  the  crushing 
thought  of  having  been  brought  into  being,  and 
made  to  suffer,  for  no  end  at  all.  Whoever  sets 
out  on  the  road  that  must  ultimately  lead  to  this, 
let  him  count  the  cost.  Let  him  consult  his 
guide-book,  whatever  it  may  be,  to  understand 
what  he  must  come  to  when  he  makes  his  de- 
parture from  the  more  serious  forms  of  religious 
belief  for  the  sake  of  easier  creeds.  What  has 
been  said  will  not  be  in  vain,  if  such  an  impres- 
sion shall  have  been  left  on  any  mind. 


LECTURE  II. 

THE  DENIAL  OF  THE  SUPERNATURAL. 


LECTURE    II. 

THE  DENIAL  OF  THE  SUPERNATURAL. 

Aversion  to  the  idea — Anthropopathism  of  the  common  infidel  argument 
against  a  particular  Providence — The  alleged  impossibility  of  the  super- 
natural— The  Divine  constancy  in  nature — Moral  power  of  a  miracle — Men 
not  afraid  of  nature — The  soothing  idea  of  physical  law — Nature  a  screen 
between  fallen  man  and  Deity — Still,  a  fascination  in  the  idea  of  the  super- 
natural— Two  kinds  of  incredibility :  that  of  the  sense,  and  that  of  the  rea- 
son— Illustrations — The  scene  of  the  crucifixion — Moral  reasons  as  affecting 
credibility — Moral  power  of  the  Biblical  supernatural — Illustrations  from 
Old  Testament  ;  from  the  New — Song  of  the  Angels  at  the  Nativity — Com- 
parison between  the  Bible  supernatural  and  that  of  all  other  "sacred 
books  "  and  mythologies — Continual  presence  in  the  Bible  of  the  moral 
sublime — The  total  absence  of  the  supernatural,  in  such  a  disordered  world 
as  ours,  would  be  the  greatest  wonder — The  soul's  demand  for  some  extra- 
ordinary Divine  manifestations — Childish  argument :  Nature  all,  therefore 
nothing  above  or  beside  nature — An  eternal  evolution  self-evolved — Ab- 
surdities involved  in  such  a  view — The  highest  in  the  lowest — More  out  of 
less — Impossibility  of  the  supernatural  the  staple  of  the  rationalistic  exe- 
gesis— The  subjective  truthfulness  of  the  Bible  involves  the  objective 
realit}\ 

A  CHIEF  characteristic  of  the  most  modern 
form  of  unbelief  is  its  strong  aversion  to  the  idea 
of  the  supernatural.  It  has  lately  taken  a  step 
beyond  all  former  ones,  in  denying  even  its  pos- 
sibility. This  cannot  be  called  a  feature  of  athe- 
ism strictly,  for  there  all  distinction  between  the 
natural  and  the  supernatural  wholly  disappears 
with  the  divine  idea.  It  is  only,  therefore,  as 
connected  with  some  form  of  professed  theism 
that  it  is  entitled  to  our  attention  :  A  God,  so 
styled,  but  who  interferes  not  now  with  nature, 
2r  (57) 


qg  VEDDER  LECTURES. 

never  will  interfere,  never  has  interfered,  except, 
perhaps,  at  some  indefinitely  remote  beginning 
brought  in  merely  as  a  logical  makeweight  to 
some  system  of  causation  rising  in  the  least  con- 
ceivable degree  above  chance.  The  argument 
here  sometimes  assumes  a  quasi-religious  form. 
God  is  too  great  to  interfere  with  an  order  He 
has  once  established.  He  is  too  wise  to  inter- 
rupt a  work  so  skilfully  planned  in  the  beginning. 
A  particular  providence,  or  any  care  for  the 
individual,  except  as  provided  for  in  the  great 
whole  of  things,  is  inconsistent  with  His  sover- 
eign dignity.  He  rules  the  world  by  laws. 
They  are  His  ministers  ;  any  interference  with 
them  would  imply  a  defect  of  knowledge  or 
power  in  their  selection  and  appointment.  Thus 
viewed,  all  alleged  miraculous  intervention  is 
petty,  however  grand  it  may  sometimes  seem  to 
our  finite  vicAv.  Thus  it  is  the  divine  honor 
they  would  defend  as  against  the  belittling  con- 
ceptions of  the  narrow  religionist.  Sometimes 
it  ''  apes  humility."  Man,  especially  the  individ- 
ual man,  is  too  insignificant.  It  is  presumptions 
in  him  to  think  that  he  is  an  object  of  the  Divine 
concern,  or  that  the  settled  course  of  things  can 
ever  be,  in  the  least,  affected  by  his  wants  and 
his  prayers ;  it  is  all  a  wretched  anthropopathy. 
Now  to  this  it   might  easily  be  replied  that  the 


THE  DENIAL  OF  THE  SUPERNA  TURAL.        59 

anthropomorphic  reasoning  is  all  the  other  way. 
It  is  our  philosophic  pietist  who  is  making  God 
altogether  such  an  one  as  himself,  needing  ma- 
chinery for  the  accomplishment  of  his  purposes, 
and  incapable  of  caring  for  the  small,  because  oc- 
cupied with  the  great  totalities.  Man  can  think 
of  but  one  thing  at  a  time,  and  this  measure  he 
applies  to  God,  not  perceiving  that  to  depart  one 
step  from  it  gives  an  infinite  range  that  may  em- 
brace an  infinite  multiplicity  of  objects  as  well  as 
the  smallest  number.  He  fails  to  see  that  in- 
finity andalmightinessdo,  of  themselves,  demand 
the  power  of  entering  into  the  finite,  of  knowing 
it  in  its  minutest  aspects,  of  surveying  it  con- 
stantly in  its  partialities  as  well  as  in  its  totalities  ; 
in  a  word,  of  exercising  the  finite  act  when 
it  pleases  God,  and  even  of  thinking  the  finite 
thought,  or  feeling  the  finite  feeling,  whenever 
he  chooses  thus  to  enter  into  the  mundane  or  the 
human  sphere.  One  who  cannot  do  this,  cannot 
do  "•  all  things,"  as  Job  confesses,  and  is,  there- 
fore, neither  almighty  nor  infinite.  The  infinite 
Word  becomes  flesh  and  dwells  among  us  ;  the 
eternal  Logos  is  ever  sounding  on  in  nature 
as  when  first  uttered;  it  speaks  in  its  minutest 
finities  as  well  as  in  its  greatest  wholes.  This  is 
the  grand  Scripture  doctrine  which  science  fails 
to  reach  ;  this  is  the  sublime  equilibrium   in  the 


6o  VEDDER  LECTURES. 

Divine  character  which  the  Scripture  every- 
where so  boldly  maintains,  and  from  which 
philosophy  is  ever  wavering.  A  science  unphilo- 
sophical  as  it  is  irreligious,  repudiates  it.  It  can- 
not rise  to  the  conception  of  worlds  transcending 
the  physical,  of  spheres  of  being  higher  than  na- 
ture, for  which  nature  is  made,  for  which  its  order 
is  sustained,  and  for  which  it  maybe  interrupted, 
if  such  a  deviation  of  causality  be  demanded  by 
a  higher  order  and  a  higher  law. 

It  would  not  be  difficult  thus  to  reply  to  the 
argument  against  miracles,  or  against  a  particu- 
lar providence,  as  maintained  by  this  semblance 
of  theism.  But  the  position  now  taken  presents 
a  somewhat  different  aspect.  It  is  nothing  less 
than  a  bold  denial  of  the  very  possibility  of  the 
supernatural.  The  older  English  school  of  un- 
believers never  exactly  reached  this  point. 
Hume's  denial  of  miracles  had  reference  solely 
to  their  incredibihty  on  the  ground  of  any  sense 
evidence,  the  difficulty  of  proving  them  by  any 
human  testimony  whose  falsity  would  not  be 
more  credible  than  the  alleged  miracle  itself.  In 
other  words,  it  was  improbable,  most  improbable  ; 
unreasonable,  apparentl}^  but  not  impossible. 
This  latter  position  is  now  taken  with  a  blind 
hardihood  that  does  not  pretend  to  reason.  It 
very  cheaply  assumes  it  as  too  plain  for    argu- 


THE  DENIAL  OF  THE  SUPERNATURAL.       6i 

ment.  No  man  of  sense — we  might  take  their 
word  if  confined  to  its  most  literal  meaning — no 
man  of  sense,  they  say,  can  believe  in  the  super- 
natural. The  manner  of  the  assertion,  moreover, 
betrays  feeling,  a  hearty  dislike  of  the  idea 
rather  than  the  calm,  philosophic  temperament, 
or  supreme  love  of  truth  that  is  so  boasted  of. 
The  mask  is  thrown  off.  There  is,  indeed,  a  dis- 
honest clinging  to  some  fancied  remnant  of  the 
theistic  conception,  but  for  all  moral  and  religious 
purposes,  it  is  that  sinking  of  God  in  nature 
which  no  evasions  of  naming  can  differentiate 
from  the  blank  atheistic  denial.  The  older  view, 
we  may  say,  conceded  a  divine  power  over  na- 
ture, though  ever  holding  its  exercise  to  be  un- 
divine  and  unreasonable  ;  the  latter  denies  the 
very  power  itself,  because  God  and  nature  are 
one.  The  supernatural,  therefore,  is  not  only  un- 
reasonable, but  impossible. 

Both  have  their  origin  in  fear — in  that  aversion 
to  the  thought  of  a  personal  God  so  deeply 
seated  in  the  fallen  human  soul.  It  is  not  a 
speculative  repugnance.  It  cannot  be  shown  that 
there  is  anything  irrational  in  the  conception  of 
an  inconceivably  great  personality  regarded  as 
having  power,  intelligence,  and  will.  The 
ground  of  fear  is  in  the  moral  element  which  it 
is  so  difficult  to  keep  separate  from  such  a  con- 


62  VEDDER  LECTURES. 

ception.  Especially  does  this  moral  dread  arise 
when  the  thought  is  entertained  of  some 
separated,  isolated  act,  as  it  were,  in  which  this 
personal  relation  of  God  to  finite  beings  brings 
with  it  a  sense  of  nearness,  and  so  presents  itself 
to  us  that  we  cannot  thrust  the  thought  away. 
In  other  words,  this  moral  element  most  closely, 
and  most  immediately,  connects  itself  with  the 
sight,  the  belief,  or  even  the  conception  of  any 
miraculous  or  nature-transcending  power.  In 
proof  of  this,  the  appeal  may  be  safely  made  to 
the  human  consciousness  ;  though  even  evangeli- 
cal men,  so  styled,  have  sometimes  taken  a  differ- 
ent view.  The  value  of  miracles,  it  is  maintain- 
ed, is  simply  in  their  attestation.  They  have 
their  place  as  credentials  given  to  the  first  de- 
liverers of  a  divine  mission  ;  they  have  simply  a 
convincing  and  a  silencing,  but  not  strictly  a 
moral  power.  The  truth  once  given,  or  seen  in 
its  own  intrinsic  evidence,  the  sign  that  simply 
called  attention  to  it,  is  no  longer  needed.  We 
believe  without  it,  it  has  been  said  ;  we  believe 
better  without  it,  and,  therefore,  nothing  is  really 
lost  by  overlooking  the  marvelous,  or  the  al- 
leged supernatural  in  the  Scriptures  ;  the  essence 
of  the  truth  remains. 

It  is  true  that  miracles,  if  frequent,  might  lose 
their   moral   power,    just    as   nature    has    done. 


THE  DENIAL   OF  THE  SUPERNATURAL        63 

Had  man  continued  holy,  she,  too,  would  have 
been  religious,  testifying  to  the  ''  eternal  power 
and  Godhead''  more  powerfully  than  any  mirac- 
ulous or  extraordinary  display.  The  divine  con- 
stancy in  nature  would  then  have  furnished  the 
adorable  element.  The  change  in  the  moral  con- 
dition has  wholly  changed  this  aspect.  Nature 
has  become  our  screen,  our  veil  from  the  insuf- 
ferable brightness,  our  hiding-place  from  the 
terror  of  that  idea  of  personahty  from  which  we 
shrink,  even  as  Adam  hid  himself  from  the  Lord 
God  in  the  trees  of  the  garden.  God  must  now 
come  to  him  in  the  thunder  voice  of  supernatu- 
ral manifestation ;  but  even  the  effect  of  this 
would  be  lost  in  its  frequency.  Men  would  watch 
for  sequences,  they  would  hunt  up  coincidences, 
they  would  give  them  the  soothing  name  of  law, 
and  thus  would  they  make  a  new  screen  between 
themselves  and  God.  We  can  see  a  reason  why 
miracles  should  be  rare ;  why  more  frequent  in 
one  age  than  in  another ;  why  they  have  charac- 
terized certain  periods,  especially  those  that  be- 
long to  the  earliest  training  of  the  human  race  ; 
why  at  times  they  seem  wholly  withdrawn,  and 
again  appear  with  startling  manifestations.  The 
miracle  may,  indeed,  be  regarded  chiefly  in  the 
light  of  an  attestation  demanded  by  some  new 
message  from  above  the  sphere  of  the  natural,  or 


64  VEDDRR  LECTURES. 

to  arouse  an  age  sinking  into  the  grossest  mate- 
rialism. But  still,  along  with  its  attesting  it  has 
ever  its  intrinsic  moral  power.  Let  there  once 
be  witnessed  something  which  we  are  compelled 
to  ascribe  to  a  supernatural  causation,  and  a  new 
feeling,  a  religious  feeling,  is  at  once  aroused, 
even  though  the  attesting  phenomena  should  be 
of  the  slightest  kind.  A  personal  will  is  showing 
itself;  God  is  near;  even  the  most  devout  soul 
has  a  new  and  startling  sense  of  some  divine 
presence."  It  is  not  the  fear  of  the  supernatural 
in  itself  The  same  or  a  similar  feeling  may  be 
awakened  sometimes  by  witnessing  remarkable 
phenomena,  less  usual,  or  more  astounding,  in 
nature  itself,  and  when  we  think  we  know  the 
causal  sequences.  In  general,  we  are  not  afraid 
of  nature ;  we  are  not  afraid  of  law,  that  idol 
of  our  own  creation  which  we  are  so  fond  of 
separating  from  the  idea  of  a  personal  lawgiver. 
We  can  somehow  take  care  of  ourselves  as 
against  these ;  Ave  feel  more  safe  with  them 
than  with  the  thought  of  a  personal  providence ; 
they  do  not  so  alarm  us  as  the  idea  of  falling  into 
''the  hands  of  the  Living  God.'*  Even  when 
there  comes  that  awful  cry  of  ''  the  pestilence 
that  walketh  in  darkness,"  we  find  an  opiate  in 
the  idea  of  nature  ;  we  are  relieved  when  our 
men  of  science  talk  to  us  so  wisely  of  physical 


THE  DENIAL   OF  THE  SUPERNATURAL.       65 

law.     "  Take  heart,"  it  is  only  something  in  the 
air   or  the    water.     That   comforts,   though    we 
know  nothing  more.     Especially  is   it  so  if   the 
invading    malady  be    more    slow    in   its  course, 
and  its  steps  more  visible,  though  actually  more 
destructive    than    others    that   frighten    us  less. 
This    is    the    secret    of  that    panic  that  accom- 
panies the  dreaded  name  of  cholera.     It  is  some- 
thing   in    the    air,    or  in  the  water,  to  be  sure. 
That   gives    some    relief;    but  then  it  comes  so 
suddenly,  it    strikes    so    iri'egularly,    its    move- 
ments   are    so    inexplicable,  its    probabilities   so 
baffle  our  most  studied  calculus;  in  a  word,  we 
are  so  helpless^  we  can  do  so  little  for  ourselves, 
or  for  each  other.     If  there  is  law  in    it,    it   is 
very   much    the   same   as   though   it    were   not. 
Something   irresistible  at  least,  something  mys- 
terious and  unknown,  is  very  near  us.     Hence  at 
such  times  all  men  are  religious,  whether  they 
choose  to  avow  it  or  not.     The  speaker  calls  to 
mind  a  scientific   man  of  some  note  who  lately 
figured  at  a  Tyndal  dinner,  and  how  frightened 
he  was  in  the  cholera  season  of  1849.     How  far 
it  was  a  religious  fear  may  not  be  confidently 
said ;  but  certainly  his  science,   much  as  it  has 
been  lauded,  gave  very  little  assurance  to  him- 
self or  others.     He  was  a  physician,  too,  confess- 
ing and  bewailing  the  utter  inadequacy  of  his 


56  VEDDER  LECTURES. 

skill  to  furnish  any  help.  He  gave  up  the  pa- 
tient. He  should  not,  perhaps,  be  blamed  for 
that;  but  then  it  should  have  taught  him  after- 
wards to  be  a  little  more  merciful  to  his  weaker 
fellow-creatures  who  lacked  his  scientific  bra- 
very, and  who  thought  that  there  might  possibly 
be  some  help  in  pra3^er.  In  these  great  and  ter- 
rific manifestations,  even  of  what  we  believe  to 
be  strictly  physical  forces,  the  awe  of  the  super- 
natural is  upon  us.  No  amount  of  science  gives 
assurance  when  the  thunder  crash  is  near,  and 
the  lightning  bolt  is  falling  at  our  feet,  or  its 
lurid  flame  is  rising  from  our  stricken  place  of 
shelter.  It  is  the  sense  of  helplessness  which 
alarms,  whilst  it  renders  the  ordinary  distinction 
between  the  natural  and  the  supernatural  so 
powerless  in  soothing  our  fears.  Calm  reason- 
ing, could  we  be  calm,  would  tell  us  that  XhQ  prob- 
abilities of  harm  are,  in  the  long  run,  far  greater 
from  other  physical  causes  that  excite  less  emo- 
tion ;  but  all  that  fails  to  give  quiet.  In  a  word, 
God  is  felt  to  be  close  at  hand  ;  our  thought  of  the 
irresistible  immediately  takes  the  personal  form, 
and  no  amount  of  science  can  drive  it  away.  Now, 
in  a  still  higher  measure  would  this  be  felt  at  the 
sight  of  some  appearance  which  we  feel  our- 
selves compelled  to  ascribe  to  a  power  above  na- 
ture, or  to  a  personal  will  near  by,  and  intending 


THE  DENIAL   OF  THE  SUPERNA  TURAL.       6/ 

the  very  thing  our  eyes  behold.  This  moral 
power  of  a  miracle  as  bringing  nigh  the  thought 
of  a  personal  God,  is  strikingly  exemplified  in 
the  language  of  Peter  at  the  sight  of  the  mirac- 
ulous draught  of  fishes,  when  he  fell  upon  his 
knees  and  besought  the  Holy  One  to  depart  from 
him  :  l^eXOe  an'  kfiov,  "  Go  away  from  me  for  I  am 
a  sinner  man,  O  Lord."  Still  more  strange  is  it 
that  it  should  be  so,  when  the  supernatural  inter- 
vention is  one  of  beneficence  and  salvation.  Even 
that  does  not  divest  it  of  its  moral  awe ;  as  when 
the  waves  were  dashing  over  the  ship,  and  the 
sleeping  Christ  awoke  to  still  the  storm.  "  They 
were  astonished,"  say  Matthew  and  Luke ; 
"they  were  greatly  afraid,"  says  the  more  graph- 
ic Mark,  and,  on  this  occasion,  with  the  deeper 
insight, — "  They  feared  a  great  fear,"  and  "  They 
said  one  to  another"  "  Who  then  is  this."  rig  dpa, 
as  though  the  familiar  Saviour  had  suddenly  be- 
come strange  and  unknown  ;  or  as  Matthew  gives 
it,  TcoTanog  earcv  ovrog,  "  What  kind  of  a  being  is 
this,"  whom  "  the  winds  and  sea  obey  !  " 

In  a  world  of  holy  unfallen  beings,  as  has  been 
already  said,  it  would  be  the  sight  of  nature's 
constancy  which  would  chiefly  inspire  the  re- 
ligious feeling,  but  w^ithout  that  of  personal  dread. 
There  would  be  no  lessening  of  awe  and  sub- 
limity in  the  contemplation  of  the  physical  move- 


58  VEDDER  LECTURES. 

ments,  no  burying  of  the  divine  idea,  the  ever- 
speaking  word,  the  ever-living  personal  thought, 
in  the  dead  notions  of  law  and  necessary  se- 
quence. Ever  new,  ever  wonderful,  ever  har- 
monious would  be  the  cosmical  anthem — all  mi- 
randa,  if  not  miraciila  in  the  special  sense  we 
now  attach  to  the  controverted  term.  It  would 
be  a  departure  from  such  order,  real  or  seeming, 
that  would  then  suggest  the  godless  thought,  or 
carry  with  it  the  strange  atheistical  idea.  Instead 
of  the  intervening  ''  finger  of  God,"  as  it  appeared 
to  the  terrified  Egyptian  magicians,  it  would 
seem  rather  like  a  sign  of  returning  chaos,  as 
though  the  hand  had  let  go  the  helm  of  the  uni- 
verse, or  the  Shekinah  light  were  going  out  in 
the  "'  Cosmical  sanctuary,"  leaving  it  to  darkness, 
confusion,  and  disma}^  With  man,  in  his  God- 
forgetting  state,  the  moral  influence  of  a  miracle, 
or  of  a  seeming  disturbance  in  nature,  is  just  the 
reverse.  When  science  is  baffled,  and  law  has 
ceased  to  soothe,  and  sequences  seem  broken,  then 
it  is  that  we  are  ready  to  cry  out,  "  the  finger  of 
God,"  and  to  say  with  the  ingenuous  Peter:  *'  Go 
away  from  us,  O  Lord,  for  we  are  sinful  men." 

And  yet  with  all  the  moral  dread,  there  is  to  the 
human  mind  a  strange  fascination  in  this  idea  of 
the  supernatural.     We  cannot  let  it  go. 

Starthng  as  is  the  thought  of  a  personal  God, 


THE  DENIAL   OF  THE  SUPERNA  TURAL.       69 

when  it  comes  nigh  to  us,  there  are  times  when  it 
is  more  tolerable  to  the  thoughtful  mind,  even 
when  not  religious,  than  the  iron-bound  fixedness 
of  an    eternal,  never -interrupted,  never -to -be 
interrupted  chain  of  physical  sequences  :  A  nature 
without  beginning  as  it  is  without  end,  a  fearful 
*' perpetual  motion,"  a  horrible  machine,  such  as 
Strauss  describes,  an  everlasting  syntagma,  mind- 
less, idealess,  caring  nothing  for  us,  ever  grind- 
ing on  with  its  merciless  laws — cause  and  effect 
— cause  and  effect,  for  ever  evermore — suggest- 
ing  nothing   else   than   an    eternal   flow   of    se- 
quences, in  which  we  ourselves  are  indissolubly 
bound,  with  no  hope  of  any  existence  ever  rising 
above  nature,  or  ever  capable  of  drifting  out  of 
its  right  onward  currents,  or  its  circling  vortexes. 
The  thought  is  suffocating.     Whatever  may  be 
the  dread   of  religion  in  some  of  its  aspects,  we 
may  well  fly  to  it  as  a  refuge  from  this  stifling 
horror.    Even  superstition  may  be  rationally  wel- 
comed as  some  relief  from  such  a  nightmare  of 
the  soul.     It  is  in  such  an  appeal  to  the  deeper 
human   consciousness  we  find  a  reply  to   both 
classes  referred  to — those  who  would  represent  a 
belief  in  the  supernatural  as  simply  alien  and  in- 
credible, and  those  who  go  a  step  beyond,  main- 
taming  that  the  very  idea  involves  an  impossi- 
bihty. 


^O  VEDDER  LECTURES. 

In  regard  to  the  first,  a  distinction  should  be 
made  between  two  kinds  of  incredibility — that  of 
the  sense,  and  that  of  the  reason.  The  first  re- 
solves itself  into  mere  strangeness  of  event. 
There  is  no  reason  why  it  might  not  be,  except 
that  we  have  never  seen  it,  and  that  stands  to  us 
in  place  of  a  reason.  It  need  not  be  said  how 
many  events  and  phenomena,  indubitable  parts 
of  nature  as  now  known,  would  have  to  be  re- 
jected, if  this  mode  of  reasoning  were  strictly 
carried  out  by  those  who  had  never  seen  such 
phenomena,  or  to  whose  observations  of  nature 
they  seemed  to  be  in  opposition.  This  has  been 
much  insisted  upon  by  the  opposers  of  Hume 
and  the  infidels  of  the  eighteenth  century.  It  is 
simply  presented  here  as  an  illustration  of  that 
lower  form  of  incredibility  which  I  have  styled  the 
incredibihty  of  the  sense.  Due  weight  is  indeed 
to  be  given  to  it  in  argument.  It  justly  demands 
unusual  evidence  for  unusual  events,  whether 
alleged  to  be  natural  or  supernatural — in  some 
cases  the  very  naturalness  itself  being  prima 
facie  more  wonderful,  that  is,  more  incredible, 
than  a  supernatural  causation.  A  strong  reason, 
moral,  spiritual,  metaphysical,  sesthetical  even, 
may  make  the  quiescence  of  nature,  in  a  given 
case,  more  strange,  that  is,  more  incredible  than 
its  disturbance.      The    positive   school,  as   it  is 


THE  DENIAL  OF  THE  SUPERNATURAL.       yi 

called,  makes  sense  the  only  arbiter,  and  with 
them  perhaps,  there  is,  in  this  matter,  no  further 
reasoning.  They  have  settled  it  that  there  arc 
no  supersensual  ideas,  no  intuitions,  no  aspira- 
tions— in  a  word,  no  supersensual  world  of  being 
controlling  all  below,  and  for  which  all  below 
has  its  existence.  All  such  ideas  are  themselves 
supernatural,  and  therefore,  in  their  view,  in- 
credible. For  those,  however,  who  believe  in 
them,  these  higher  faculties  of  the  soul  must  be 
regarded  as  having  also  their  claim  to  be  heard. 
Viewed  as  separate  from  sense,  or  considered  on 
a  scale  of  higher  probabilities,  they,  too,  have  an 
intrinsic  reasonableness,  demanding,  in  a  given 
case,  the  strongest  evidence  on  the  other  side,  or 
a;^a:nst  the  happening  of  what  they  may  seem  to 
require,  even  though  involving  a  disturbance  of 
the  usual  sequence  of  events. 

And  this  is  what  we  mean  by  the  credibility  or 
incredibility  of  the  reason.  It  is  that  view,  or 
those  considerations  which,  aside  from  any 
strangeness  of  the  sense,  would  warrant  us  in 
pronouncing  an  alleged  event,  whether  of  an 
ordinary  or  extraordinary  kind,  rational  and 
therefore  credible.  It  is  not  an  assuming  of  its 
reality,  but  only  of  such  a  connection  with  a 
higher  state  of  things  perfectly  rational  and  con- 
ceivable, as  might  change  the  scale  and  prepon- 


72 


VEDDER  LECTURES. 


derance  of  evidence  as  addressed  to  the  sense- 
transcending  faculties.  Take  the  vivid  gospel 
narrative  of  the  crucifixion.  Keep  the  mind 
fixed  upon  the  central  fact  as  presenting  the 
essential  idea.  A  holy  man — the  holiest  man 
ever  known  on  this  sin-polluted  earth — suspended 
on  the  cross.  By  wicked  hands  is  He  taken, 
crucified,  and  slain.  He  is  enduring  inconceiv- 
able agony.  His  malignant  murderers  are  feast- 
ing their  eyes  upon  the  spectacle.  They  taunt 
Him  with  His  helplessness,  saying :  *'  Come  down 
now  from  the  cross,  if  Thou  be  indeed  the  Christ, 
the  Son  of  God."  It  is  a  challenge  to  the  Eternal 
Father.  It  is  a  charging  Him  with  indifference 
towards  the  holy  sufferer.  In  bitter  mockery 
they  give  him  vinegar  to  drink,  mingled  with 
gall.  His  dying  thirst  unquenched.  He  utters  a 
mighty  wailing  cry  of  desolation,  and  gives  up 
the  ghost.  Now  connect  this  awful  scene  with 
the  perfectly  rational  conception  of  a  Holy  One  in 
the  heavens — One  who  loves  righteousness  and 
hates  wrong  with  a  divine  intensity — One  who 
possesses  almighty  power  and  infinite  goodness. 
He  is  beholding  this  demonic  spectacle ;  it  lies 
right  beneath  His  holy  eye.  Nature  is  under 
His  control,  as  it  is,  though  in  a  far  less  degree, 
under  the  supernatural  control  of  man.  Now  we 
cannot  say  that  He  will  certainly  interfere   with 


THE  DENIAL   OF  THE  SUFERNA  TURAL. 


73 


it;  we  may  not  deny  His  existence,  or  doubt  His 
power,  or  charge  Him  with  indifference,  if  He 
does  not  supernaturally  interfere  with  it.  He 
may  even  have  great  moral  or  nature-transcend- 
ing purposes  that  may  prevent  His  interfering 
with  it,  or  making  any  special  manifestation  re- 
specting it.  Good  men  have  been  put  to  death 
most  unJListl}^  ;  they  have  died  in  agonies  of 
flame  and  crucifixion  ;  they  have  suffered,  and 
nature  has  been  silent;  no  sign  has  come  from  the 
superhuman  or  supernatural  sphere.  So  there 
may  be  reasons  why  God  should  not  interfere 
with  it  in  this  case,  or  even  give  any  sign  of  His 
beholding  or  His  displeasure.  It  is,  therefore, 
not  incredible  that  the  sun  should  shine  calmly 
in  the  heavens,  or  go  placidly  down  in  presence 
of  such  a  scene,  or  that  nature  should  give  no 
visible  intimation  of  its  sympathy,  or  of  any  sym- 
pathy on  the  part  of  Him  who  sits  above.  We 
may  say,  too,  that  should  such  sign  be  given,  it 
would  be  strange  to  the  sense,  and,  so  far,  have 
about  it  a  sense-incredibility.  But  is  there  not 
a  strangeness,  an  incredibility,  in  the  other  aspect, 
that  may  overpower  this  sense-incredibility,  or 
become  so  strong,  in  a  given  case,  as  to  make  it 
more  easy  to  believe  that  the  rocks  should  be 
rent,  that  the  earth  should  tremble,  or  that  the 
sun  should  be  darkened,  than  that  nature  and  the 
4 


74 


VEDDER   LECTURES. 


infinite!}^  Hol}^  One  who  sits  above  in  the  high 
and  holy  place,  should  manifest  no  sympathy,  no 
sign  even  of  His  witnessing  presence.  It  must 
be  a  moral  reason  in  either  case,  whether  for  the 
wondrous  appearing,  or  for  what  may  be  the  still 
more  wondrous  withholding.  The  appeal  is 
made  to  a  higher  faculty  than  the  sense.  There 
may  be  answers  to  it ;  but  surely  these  higher 
powers,  the  reason,  the  conscience — in  a  word, 
the  consideration  of  a  sphere  of  being  above  the 
physical,  should  have  their  weight  in  judging  of 
the  question,  and'  the  whole  measure  of  credi- 
bility. It  is  the  exceeding  greatness  of  the  moral 
reason  connected  with  the  alleged  event  which 
may  be  regarded  as  affecting  the  scale,  so  as  to 
make  it  easy  of  belief  to  the  mind  deeply  im- 
pressed with  it.  In  other  words,  for  souls  acces- 
sible to  this  higher  evidence,  the  moral  strange- 
ness in  the  one  aspect  might  more  than  balance 
the  physical  strangeness  so  much  insisted  on  in 
the  other  and  narrower  view. 

A  moral  reason,  or  an  impressive  moral  fact, 
joined  with  an  alleged  miraculous  or  supernatu- 
ral event;  every  thinking  mind  must  see  that  this 
being  the  case  or  not,  must  have  an  important 
bearing  on  the  question  of  credibility.  It  is  here 
we  find  the  striking  difference  between  the  Bible 
marvelous  and  the  Bible  supernatural,  and  that 


THE  DENIAL   OF  THE  SUPERNATURAL.        75 

of  all  other  religions  and  mythologies  with  which 
some  are  so  fond  of  comparing  it.  There  is  a 
moral  sublimity  about  it  found  nowhere  else,  and 
which  gross  ignorance  alone,  or  still  more  gross 
unfairness,  can  refuse  to  acknowledge.  Compare 
the  Bible  myths,  if  any  insist  upon  so  calling 
them,  with  Greek  m3^ths,  or  Hindoo  myths,  or 
Scandinavian  myths,  or  any  wonders  fancied  or 
deciphered  from  Egyptian  or  Assyrian  monu- 
ments. The  literary  men  among  us  who  have  so 
much  to  say  about  the  Vedas,  and  the  Shastras, 
and  the  primitive  fire-worship,  and  the  ''tracing 
to  these  sources  of  all  Christian  theology,"  and 
of  all  scriptural  mythology — let  them  bring  on 
their  authorities.  If  their  ignorance  of  the  Vedas, 
and  of  the  Eastern  Scriptures,  is  not  greater  than 
their  ignorance  of  the  Bible,  let  them  cite  book, 
chapter,  section,  verse,  and  lay  them  side  by  side 
with  the  Old  and  New  Testaments.  Or  let  them 
bring  the  best  things  their  knowledge,  their  taste, 
their  criticism,  or  their  philosophy  can  select 
from  these  vaunted  sources,  and  then  let  the 
Christian — even  the  unlearned  Christian — con- 
front them,  singly  or  collectively,  with  spiritual 
gems,  and  spiritual  wonders,  gathered  from  our 
holy  book.  Nothing  could  be  more  decisive  ; 
nothing  would  so  effectually  put  an  end  to  this 
shallow  literary  babble  now  breeding   so    much 


>j(y  VEDDER  LECTURES. 

ignorant  scepticism;  nothing  would  so  thoroughly 
dissipate  the  foolish  prating  about  Christ  and 
Confucius,  Christ  and  Buddha,  which  is  now  kept 
up  by  our  Avise  lecturers,  and  on  the  slightest 
connections,  whether  it  be  the  discovery  of  a 
Babylonian  tablet  with  its  monstrous"  imagery, 
and  still  more  monstrous  record,  if  rightly  de- 
ciphered, or  the  finding  of  a  fire-hook  dug  up 
from  the  site  of  ancient  Troy.  Especially  may 
such  a  challeno^e  be  made  in  respect  to  the  Bible 
supernatural  as  compared  with  that  which  is 
found  in  the  mythological  writings,  hymns,  or 
traditions  of  all  other  nations.  If  anything  can 
be  called  universal,  innate,  common  to  all  relig- 
ious and  even  to  all  serious  human  thought,  it 
is  this  tendency  to  the  reception  of  the  super- 
natural. The  inference  from  it  is  a  most  impor- 
tant one,  and  we  commend  it  to  those  who  have 
so  much  to  say  about  the  natural  and  the  univer- 
sal religion.  But  it  is  this  striking  difference  be- 
tween the  Bible  supernatural  and  all  other  won- 
ders to  which  special  attention  is  here  asked. 
Note  the  monstrosity,  the  grotesqueness,  the  sheer 
fancifulness,  the  absence  of  satisfying  moral  rea- 
sons, that  everywhere  characterize  the  heathen 
mythologies.  It  is  not  only  that  moral  reasons 
are  absent,  but  that  there  is  in  them,  for  the  most 
part,  no  reason  at  all.      It  is  this  more  than  any- 


THE  DENIAL   OF  THE  SUPERNATURAL.        yy 

thing  else  that  constitutes  their  incredibility. 
How  different  the  Bible  marvelous !  The  moral 
is  everywhere,  not  only  present,  but  predomi- 
nant. This  so  takes  possession  of  the  mind  that 
the  physical  strangeness  falls  in  the  background, 
if  it  does  not  wholly  disappear.  Hence  it  is  that 
the  Bible  supernatural  comes  to  seem  natural,  if 
we  may  express  it  thus  paradoxically.  It  is  a 
nodtis  vindice  digmis.  It  seems  just  the  right 
thing,  the  fit  and  proper  thing,  the  thing  to  be 
expected,  the  thing  whose  absence,  it  might 
almost  be  said,  would  seem  stran.;e  in  the  midst 
of  such  sublime  moral  accompaniments.  It  is 
an  ignorant  slander,  as  uttered  by  some  of  our 
literary  men,  that  the  Christian  reads  his  Bible 
with  the  same  unreasoning  confidence  in  its 
wonders  as  the  Hindoo  feels  in  the  perusal  of  his 
sacred  books,  or  in  reciting  his  traditional 
legends.  They  know  nothing  about  the  Bible 
who  say  this,  as  indeed  they  know  very  little 
about  the  writings  with  which  they  so  flippantly 
compare  it.  Crude  monstrosities,  unmeaning 
transformations,  grotesque  developments,  hideous 
physical  generations,  which  some  take  great  pains 
to  call  incarnations  in  order  to  cast  dishonor 
upon  the  Scripture  doctrine  of  the  Logos — grossly 
animal  metamorphoses,  all  taking  place  without 
any    moral   reason,    without   any   reason   at   all. 


^3  VEDDER  LECTURES. 

without  even  any  known  physical  analogy,  are 
thus  unblushingly  compared  with  the  Christian 
-^  and  Biblical  marvelous,  in  which  the  very  impres- 
sion of  the  miraculous  disappears  before  the 
moral  and  spiritual  awe.  This  explains  why 
these  Bible  wonders,  when  read  by  the  most  in- 
tellectual and  cultured  minds — equal  in  this 
respect  to  the  highest  of  those  who  make  the 
charge — carry  with  them  such  a  marvelous  air  of 
truthfulness,  such  a  serene  and  majestic  impres- 
sion of  reality.  It  is  this  state  of  soul,  and  the 
discernment  of  this  peculiar  character  in  the 
Holy  Scripture,  that  makes  the  wide  differ- 
ence between  men  like  Augustine,  Anselm, 
Hooker,  Bacon,  Cudworth,  Edwards,  Hall,  Cole- 
ridge, Foster,  Neander,  Maurice,  Newman,  Isaac 
Taylor,  Montalambert,  Guizot,  on  the  one  side, 
and  the  admired  writers  in  some  of  our  monthlies 
on  the  other.  Certainly  the  men  I  have  men- 
tioned, with  all  the  hindrances  of  their  age  that 
may  be  conceded  in  respect  to  some  of  them, 
were  as  well  quahfied  to  discern  the  monstrous, 
the  legendary,  the  absurd,  as  Mr.  Emerson,  or 
Mr.  Oliver  Wendell  Homes,  or  Mr.  Bayard 
Ta3dor,  with  all  the  reputation  for  genius  and 
talent  which  is  conceded  to  them. 

As  an   evidence  of  this  divine  impress  upon 
the  supernatural  of  the  Scriptures,  take  the  ac- 


THE  DENIAL  OF  THE   SUPERNA  TURAL.       ^g 

count  of  Moses'  vision  of  the  burning  bush,  as 
given  in  Exodus  iii.  How  destitute  of  all  the 
higher  moral  emotional  must  be  the  soul  that  can 
read  it  without  a  feeling  of  its  calm,  unutterable 
sublimity!  How  does  every  Greek  legend  pale 
before  it  in  this  aspect  of  scenic  power,  even  if 
we  take  nothing  else  into  the  account.  Brief  as 
it  is,  what  other  myth,  so  called,  can  compare 
with  it  in  its  awful,  graphic  vividness.  And  yet 
what  an  absence  of  the  mere  wonder-making^  or 
the  sensational  in  style  !  But  this  is  only  the 
outward  accompaniment.  It  is  the  moral  idea, 
the  moral  reason — that  which  other  legends  so 
much  lack,  unless  as  invented  for  them  by  un- 
natural or  far-fetched  accommodation — which 
gives  it  its  ineffable  sanctity  and  power.  The 
very  simplicity  of  the  narration  is  the  strongest 
evidence  of  its  truthfulness  ;  the  sensational 
is  hushed,  the  awe  upon  the  soul  is  too 
great  for  any  mere  emotional  utterance.  *'  And 
Moses  said,  I  will  now  turn  aside  and  see  this 
great  sight :"  the  flaming  bush  alone  in  the  weird 
desert — steadily  "burning,  but  not  consumed." 
There  is  the  moral  here,  the  moral  sublime  tran- 
scending the  physical  sublime,  the  moral  awe 
transcending  the  physical  wonder,  and  making  it 
seem  like  nature  itself  attesting  the  presence  of 
its  Lord.     It  has  this  moral  power  as  the  symbol 


8o  VEDDER   LECTURES. 

of  ^'  the  ever-living  God,"  as  connected  with  the 
great  name  of  Jehovah  which  some  have  sought 
so  ineffectually,  yet  with  such  strange  zeal,  to  bring 
out  of  the  Egyptian  darkness,  or  to  deduce  its 
high  spiritual  significance  from  the  most  un- 
spiritual  of  all  the  ancient  mythologies.  It  is  the 
proclamation  of  the  eternal  self-existence,  the  I 
AM,  the  timeless  being,  6  "dv,  nal  b  tjv,  koI  b  tpxaiie- 
vog,  who  is,  and  was,  and  t's  to  come.  "  Burning 
ever,  but  not  consumed ;"  what  a  power  in  this 
language  of  symbol,  as  proved  by  the  inadequacy 
of  other  language,  written  or  articulate,  to  ex- 
press by  any  one  of  its  imperfect  tense  forms,  or 
by  a]l  of  them  conjoined,  this  timeless  idea! 
Another  example  of  this  peculiarity  is  presented 
to  us  in  the  thunders  of  Sinai,  the  flaming  mount, 
the  appalling  darkness  into  which  Moses  ascends, 
the  awful  voice,  at  which  ''the  people  trembled," 
and  "  removed  afar  off,"  and  "  entreated  that  the 
word  should  not  be  spoken  to  them  any  more." 
How  life-like,  and  yet  how  ineffably  sublime  ! 
How  much  there  was  hereof  the  strictly  natural, 
the  volcanic,  or  the  electric,  we  may  not  know,  nor 
does  it  much  concern  us  to  inquire.  The  Scrip- 
ture makes  little  of  the  distinction  on  which  the 
modern  mind  so  much  insists.  It  blends  the 
great  and  the  terrible  of  both  departments  in  its 
representations   of  the  power    and   presence   of 


THE  DENIAL  OF  THE  SUPERNATURAL.       gl 

God.  But  here  comes  in  again  the  moral  great- 
ness of  the  scene.  It  is  something  beyond,  either 
the  natural,  or  the  supernatural  regarded  merely 
in  its  effect  upon  the  physical  world.  It  is  the 
spiritual  sublimity  we  recognize  in  the  reason  of 
the  event  as  transcending  both.  It  is  the  occa- 
sion of  giving  a  law  to  a  people  chosen  from 
among  the  nations  then  fast  sinking  into  polythe- 
ism and  idolatry — chosen  and  preserved  as  a 
world-people,  the  world  prophets,  the  keepers  of 
truth,  and  of  the  glorious  Messianic  promise  in 
which  ''  all  the  families  of  the  earth  should  be 
blessed  " — in  which  we  are  blessed — from  whom 
has  come  an  influence  beyond  all  the  power  of 
Greek  and  Roman  literature,  and  by  which  our 
modern  world  has  been  so  greatly  elevated  and 
transformed.  It  is  this  which  makes  it  seem  easy 
to  us — rational,  credible,  most  appropriate,  most 
harmonious,  when  we  read  the  moral  message  of 
which  this  superhuman  scenery  was  the  ac- 
companiment :  "  And  God  spake  all  these  words 
saying,  I  am  Jehovah  thy  God.  Thou  shalt 
have  no  other  gods  before  me.  Thou  shalt  not 
make  to  thee  any  image  or  any  likeness  of  any- 
thing that  is  in  heaven  above,  or  that  is  in  the 
earth  beneath,  or  that  is  in  the  waters  below  the 
earth.  Thou  shalt  not  bow  down  thyself  to 
them  ;  for  I,  Jehovah  thy  God,  am  a  jealous  God 
4* 


32  VEDDER  LECTURES. 

— a  holy  God — visiting  iniquity   unto   the  third 
and  fourth  generations  of  them  that  hate  me,  and 
showing  mercy  unto  thousands  of  them  that  \o\q 
me  and  keep  my  Commandments."     It  is  to  this 
moral   sublime   that  Moses   appeals,    Deut.  iv.  : 
*'  For  what  nation  is  so  great,  that  hath  God  so 
nigh    unto    them  ;  and    what   nation    is    so    dis- 
tinguished that  hath  statutes  and  judgments  so 
righteous.      Keep  in    mind    the  day    that  thou 
stoodest  before  the  Lord  thy  God  in  Horeb,  and 
ye  came  near  and  stood  under  the  mountain,  and 
the   mountain   burned  with    fire  unto  the   very 
heart  of  the  heavens,  with  clouds,  also,  and  thick 
darkness,  and  the    Lord   spake  unto  you  out  of 
the  fire;  ye  heard  a  voice,  but  saw  no  similitude. 
Take  ye,  therefore,  good  heed  unto  yourselves, 
lest  ye  corrupt  yourselves,  and  make  you  the  like- 
ness of  any  figure,  male  or  female,  or  lest  ye  lift 
up  your  eyes  unto  heaven,  and  behold  the  moon 
and  the  stars,  even  all  the  host  of  heaven,  and  be 
led    to  worship  them — take  good   heed  to  your- 
selves, for  ye  saw  no  manner  of  similitude  on  the 
day  when  the    Lord  spake  unto  you  in  Horeb, 
out  of  the   midst  of  the    fire."     Where    did  the 
legendary  ever  so  combine  the  supernatural  and 
the  moral,  the    awful  and   the  familiar?     When 
did  a  Greek  myth-maker,  or  myth-collector,  when 
did  a  Greek  lawgiver  make  such  an  appeal  to  a 


THE  DENIAL   OF  THE  SUPERNATURAL.       83 

people,  citing  the  most  wonderful  event  in  their 
history  as  a  well  known  statistical  fact  entering 
so  deeply  into  their  moral  and  religious  con- 
sciousness ?  And  where,  too,  it  may  well  be  ask- 
ed, could  be  found  the  moral  ground  of  such  a  con- 
sciousness in  any  of  their  cotemporary  surround- 
ings, if  it  had  not  come  from  some  such  stupend- 
ous revelation  ? 

The  Mosaic  conception  of  Deity,  the  idea  of 
the  timeless  I  AM,  of  the  God  who  has  no  sim- 
ilitude in  heaven  or  earth,  this  from  the  Egyp- 
tians !  A  thought  so  ineffably  pure  and  holy 
plagiarized  from  a  people  whose  imagery  buries 
out  of  sight  every  moral  or  spiritual  conception 
the  most  Bible-hating  imagination  could  possibly 
trace  in  their  sensual  nature-worship,  and  their 
degraded  animal  forms.  Let  the  rationahst,  so 
called,  believe  this,  if  he  can. 

Or  come  we  down  to  the  New  Testament 
marvelous ;  take  the  narrative  the  most  as- 
tounding, the  most  legendary  in  its  outer  aspect 
of  them  all — the  guiding  star  of  the  Wise  Men, 
as  Dr.  Upham  has  so  powerfully  presented 
it  in  his  wonderful  book  —  along  with  it  the 
Song  of  the  Angels,  the  light  that  shone  so 
suddenly  around  the  adoring  shepherds,  the 
choral  anthem  that  seemed  to  come  from  '*  the 
heavenly  places  :  "   Gloria  in  excelsis — "Glory  to 


84 


•   VEDDER  LECTURES. 


God  in  the  highest ;  on  eai'th  peace,  good-will 
to  men."  As  the  marvelous  merely,  as  the 
rapt  ideal,  how  transcendingly  sublime  !  Where 
do  we  find  anything  like  it  in  other  legendary 
lore?  How  would  it  strike  us,  even  in  this 
aspect,  if  it  had  come  upon  us  in  the  reading  of 
any  Greek  or  Hindoo  myth,  in  some  legend  of  Jupi- 
ter, Hercules,  Brahma,  Vishnu,  Thor,  or  Woden  ? 
But  now  look  at  it  in  connection  with  that  still 
more  glorious  moral  conception  which  it  attests. 
View  it  as  bearing  witness  to  the  incarnation  of 
the  Logos,  that  most  wondrous  fact  in  the  evo- 
lutions of  the  world — that  most  wondrous  event, 
as  then  manifested  in  the  developments  of  human 
history.  It  is  the  birth  of  the  Redeemer,  the 
hero  of  the  Protevangel,  the  mighty  cham- 
pion against  the  powers  of  evil,  the  glorious 
Messiah,  then  humanly  born  in  Bethlehem, 
*'  least  of  the  cities  of  Judah,"  (as  earth  is  least, 
it  may  be,  among  the  planetary  worlds,)  but 
of  whose  spiritual  and  moral  kingdom  there  was 
to  be  no  end.  Is  it  incredible,  viewed  in  itself, 
that  to  such  a  fact,  such  an  ideal  even,  there 
should  be  an  attestation  drawn  from  a  higher 
sphere — if  it  is  not  irrational  to  believe  in  such 
higher  sphere — and  giving  a  reason  and  a  meaning 
to  the  physical  wonder  itself?  Gloria  in  excelsis. 
'*  Glory  to  God  in  the  highest;   on  earth  peace, 


THE  DENIAL  OF  THE  SUPERNATURAL.        85 

good-will  to  men."  This  unreal !  what,  then,  is 
real  ?  This  to  be  thrown  away  as  belonging  to 
the  world  of  dreams,  and  the  puzzling  material 
shadows  that  come  and  go,  appear  and  disap- 
pear, upon  this  low  stage  of  being — Strauss, 
Renan,  Hume,  Voltaire,  Tyndall,  Darwin,  Hux- 
ley, apes,  gorillas — all  these  having  a  veritable 
place  in  rcriim  7iatiira  !  "  Glor}^  to  God  in  the 
highest ;  on  earth  peace,  good-will  to  men ; " 
such  a  song  from  the  supernal  sphere  falling 
upon  the  human  sense  ;  it  cannot  be,  says  the 
sceptic,  it  cannot  be,  for  it  was  never  heard 
before,  it  has  not  been  heard  since,  and  there- 
fore no  evidence  can  prove  it.  But  imagine 
now — and  it  is  a  perfectly  rational  exercise  of 
this  high  faculty — imagine  now  a  being  who 
had  never  seen  a  world  like  this,  so  full  of  evil, 
physical  evil,  physical  irregularity  as  it  appears 
— so  abounding  in  moral  obliquity,  in  madness, 
crime,  in  all  unreason,  in  all  spritual  deformity — 
could  either  sense  or  reason  credit  it  ? 

The  pecuharity  to  which  attention  is  called 
appears  throughout  the  Bible.  In  all  its  super- 
natural, this  moral  ground  and  moral  reason 
may  be  distinctly  seen.  There  is  nothing  in  it 
capricious,  reasonless,  monstrous,  or  grotesque. 
Now,  whatever  may  be  the  condition  of  other 
worlds,  the  one  in  which  we  live  is  certainly  full  of 


86  VEDDER   LECTURES. 

moral  disorder,  and  there  would  seem  to  be  a 
propriety  that  the  physical,  in  such  a  world, 
should  present  some  reflection  of  the  spiritual 
confusion.  Given,  then,  the  idea  of  a  personal 
God,  of  a  holy  God,  loving  righteousness,  and 
hating  sin — a  deity  in  whose  eyes  the  physical  is 
subordinate  to  the  moral,  and  has  its  value  only 
as  a  disciplinary  and  probationary  aid  to  a  higher 
spiritual  excellence ;  given  this,  which  no  one 
can  call  irrational,  and  w^e  may  boldly  reverse 
the  position  which  some  so  confidently  as- 
sume. It  would  be  the  rarity  of  the  super- 
natural that  would  be  the  real  wonder.  The  utter 
silence  of  nature  ;  that  would  be  the  real  miracle. 
Even  in  such  a  morally  disordered  world,  regu- 
larity in  physical  phenomena  would  still  have 
a  ground  in  the  reason  ;  it  would  be  demanded 
for  the  ordinary  government  of  rational  action  ; 
but  the  total  absence  of  any  sign  from  the  higher 
sphere  attesting  the  presence  of  the  denied  or 
the  contemned  lawgiver,  that  would  be  a  thing 
most  wonderful,  most  incredible.  And  to  this 
corresponds  the  natural  feeling  of  the  human 
soul.  Why  has  a  belief  in  the  supernatural,  I 
ask  again,  been  so  universal?  To  fallen  beings 
there  is,  indeed,  a  dread  in  the  thought  of  a  per- 
sonal intervening  deity,  but  this  is  overpowered, 
at    times,    by  the    still    more    alarming    thought 


THE  DENIAL   OF  THE  SUPERNA  TURAL.       8/ 

of  there  being-  nothing  above   us  that  concerns 
itself  with    the  affairs  of  men.     When  crime  un- 
punished fills  the   land,  when  cruelty,  injustice, 
oppression,   are  everywhere   triumphant;    when 
the    predominance   of    wealth    and    capital    are 
crushing  labor  to  the  earth  ;   when  the  poor  cry 
out,  and  our  boasted  science  of  poHtical  econ- 
omy,  with  all  its   vaunted    remedial   powers,  is 
found  an   utter  failure  ;  when  ambition,  with  its 
mighty  standing  armies,  is  filling  the  earth  with 
groans   and    blood,   and    all   the  visible   laws  of 
nature   seem    pressed  into  the  service   of  those 
who   perpetrate  such    enormities;    when    ''men 
are  made  as  the  fishes  of  the  sea,  taken  with  the 
angle,  caught  in  the  net,  gathered  in  the  drag ;  " 
vrhen  all  mere  humanitarian  reforms  have  proved 
their  falsity,  or  have  exceeded  in  mischief  the 
very  evils  they  were  proposed  to  remedy  ;  when 
the  last  great  boast  of   democracy  is   showing 
itself  a  failure,  as  well   as   the   monarchies   and 
aristocracies  and  priesthoods  that  preceded  it ; 
when   "  earth  seems  given  into  the  hands  of  the 
wicked  " — how  instinctively  does  the  mind  rise  to 
something  higher  than  nature  !     ''  O  that  Thou 
wouldst  rend  the  heavens  and  come  down  ;  "  the 
cry  is  in  the  soul,  if  not  uttered  by  the  voice,  or 
its  meaning  distinctly   conceived   by  the  under- 
standing.    Though  we  may  not   reason   clearly 


88  VEDDER  LECTURES. 

about  it,  it  is  felt  that  it  is  the  highest  reason 
that  prompts  it.  The  politician,  the  editor,  even 
the  infidel  statesman,  seem  sometimes  strangely 
driven  to  the  utterance  of  language  that  can  have 
no  other  meaning.  It  is  all  inconsistent,  indeed, 
hypocritical  perhaps,  in  some  of  its  aspects,  but 
still  in  deference  to  this  irrepressible  feeling. 
There  must  be  an  interposition,  somehow  and 
somewhere,  in  favor  of  right.  If  questioned  as  to 
their  distinct  meaning  in  such  utterances,  they 
would  doubtless  have  over  again  the  old  babble 
of  intervention  by  social  laws,  or  natural  laws,  as 
though  nature  herself  were  gentle,  long-suffering, 
merciful,  righteous,  opposed  to  wrong  ;  but  it  is 
an  intervention  after  all,  something  that  would 
not  happen  in  the  course  of  things  as  they  were 
going  on,  and  the  idea  cannot  stop  short  of  the 
supernatural.  The  expectation  is  utterly  rea- 
sonless, or  it  must  be  supposed  that  somewhere 
the  switch  is  turned  by  an  unseen  hand  ;  at  some 
link  or  nexus  in  the  lower  sphere  of  nature  and 
humanity  comes  in  the  interference  that  receives 
its  command  from  the  higher  order  and  the  higher 
law.  '*  I  tremble  for  my  country,"  says  Jeffer- 
son, "  when  I  remember  that  God  is  just  and 
that  His  vengeance  will  not  sleep  for  ever." 
However  little  he  may  have  individually  meant 
by    this,  it    came    from    him    impulsively  as  the 


THE  DENIAL   OF  THE  SUPERNA  TURAL.        89 

prophet  of  the  human  soul.  Sometimes  the  re- 
verse thought  sorely  tries  the  beHever's  faith  : 
*'  Art  Thou  not  from  everlasting  Jehovah,  my 
God,  my  Holy  One  ?  Thou  art  of  purer  eyes 
than  to  behold  evil  ;  wherefore  lookest  Thou, 
then,  upon  them  vv^ho  deal  treacherously,  and 
holdest  Thy  peace  when  the  wicked  devoureth 
the  man  that  is  more  righteous  than  he  ?  "  Even 
to  the  Christian  it  is  the  rarity  of  the  super- 
natural that  seems  the  real  paradox :  ''  Why 
standest  Thou  afar  off?"  Why  does  not  God 
oftener  speak  to  us?  Why  are  the  heavens  so 
still  ?  Instead  of  there  being  apparently  so  httle 
of  intervention  in  the  affairs  of  men,  why  is 
there  not  a  great  deal  more  than  has  ever  been 
recorded  either  in  Scripture  or  in  mythology  ? 
The  pious  soul  reconciles  itself  to  it,  but  it  is  only 
on  the  ground  of  faith,  rising  above  both  sense 
and  reason  :  "  Clouds  and  darkness  are  round 
about  Him,  but  judgment  and  truth  are  the  foun- 
dation of  His  throne." 

But  the  most  modern  infidelity,  as  I  have  said, 
takes  a  step  beyond  this.  The  supernatural,  it 
affirms,  is  not  simply  incredible^  difficult  of  belief, 
requiring  strong  and  rare  evidence,  but  absolute- 
ly impossible.  It  would  not  be  easy  to  say  on 
what  rational  grounds  this  dictum  rests.  As 
commonly  used,  it  is  a  sheer  assumption.     It  has 


QO  VEDDER  LECTURES. 

no  reason  in  it.  It  is  equivalent  to  denying  that 
there  is  anything  above  nature,  older  than  na- 
ture, or  from  which  it  comes.  It  has  no  reason, 
we  say,  for  it  is  the  annihilation  of  reason  re- 
garded as  anything  else  than  itself  a  product  of 
nature,  as  thought  and  consciousness  are  affirm- 
ed to  be.  Now  reason,  if  there  be  any  such 
thing,  must  be  supreme.  It  must  be  primeval, 
first  of  all.  **  The  Logos  "  must  be  ''  in  the  be- 
ginning "  or  it  has  no  true  existence.  That  to 
which  we  give  the  name  of  reason  is,  on  the  other 
hypothesis,  but  a  shadow,  a  transient  reflection 
from  the  physical,  and  can,  therefore,  never  rise 
above  it,  or  pronounce  any  judgment  about  it  as 
rational  or  irrational.  Whenever,  therefore,  any 
formal  argument  is  attempted  here,  the  assump- 
tion becomes  immediately  manifest  in  all  its  bald- 
ness. It  comes  to  this:  Nature  is  all;  there- 
fore there  can  be  nothing  else.  Most  lucid  enthy- 
meme  !  But  that  is  all  they  can  make  of  it. 
They  avoid  any  objection  drawn  from  the  human 
faculties,  by  simply  turning  man  himself  into  na- 
ture. By  this  arbitrary  and  impudent  assump- 
tion, the  human  thought,  consciousness,  reason, 
immediately  become  products  of  nature,  and 
even  some  divines,  through  a  prejudice  in  favor  of 
their  own  narrow  definition  of  the  supernatural, 
are  forced  to  the  same  conclusion.     Our  souls  are 


THE  DENIAL   OF  THE  SUPERNATURAL.       qi 

in  the  machinery  as  much  as  our  bones.     The  pas- 
sengers in  the  railroad  train,  with  all  their  ideals, 
all   their   speculations,  all  their  politics,  morals, 
religions    even,    are   as   purely    physical    forces, 
physical  movements,  as  the  grass  growing  in  the 
fields  by  which  they  are  so  rapidly  passing.     The 
engineer  is  himself  but  apart  of  the  machinery. 
Nay  more,  the  very  inventor  of  the  engine,  and 
even  the  invention  itself,  is  as  much  an  inseparable 
part  of  nature  as  the  boiUng  water  or  the  hissing 
steam.     When  we  depart,  however,  in  the  least 
from  this  sheer  petitio  principii  that  nature  is  all, 
we  are  at  once  in  a  region  that  carries  our  rea- 
soning fearfully  far  and  fearfully  high.     If  nature 
is  not  all,  then   it  may  be  a  small  portion  of  the 
whole,  and   not  only  a  small,  but  a  very  inferior 
thing,  whose    fixedness  or   mutability  can    have 
their  value  only  in  relation  to  some  sphere   or 
world  above.     In  this  crude  assumption  nature  is 
not  defined.     If  it  is  meant  as  only  another  name 
for  being  in  general,  or  for  the  whole  system  of 
things  including  a  supreme  mind  and  a  will  as 
well   as   a   supreme   force,    then    it    becomes    a 
childish  logomachy.     It  is  the  shallowest  truism 
when  we  say  that  the  laws  of  the  cosmos,  thus 
regarded,  cannot  be  broken.     It  becomes  simply 
a  name  for  God's  government,  and  all  rational 
minds  must  assent  to  the  proposition  that  in  it 


92 


VEDDER  LECTURES. 


there  can  be  nothing  capricious,  nothing  without 
reason.  "All  things  were  made  by  the  Logos, 
and  without  him  was  there  nothing  made  that 
was  made."  If  there  is  any  seeming  deviation, 
any  interruption  of  the  course  of  the  visible  na- 
ture, it  is  in  obedience  to  some  higher  law  of  the 
supernatural  world.  We  may  even  suppose  that 
such  deviation  from  the  ordinary  visible  is 
brought  about  by  a  transcending  personality, 
acting  directly  upon,  and  through,  deeply  in- 
terior laws,  or  forces  in  nature  herself — such 
springs  or  cogs  as  only  operate,  or  approach,  or 
come  in  contact,  when  the  hour  is  struck,  though 
lying  long  quiescent  in  the  ordinary  movement 
of  the  clock,  or  silently  nearing  each  other  in  that 
far  down  region  to  which  no  science  can  pene- 
trate. The  secret  of  such  forces  may  be  known 
to  higher  intelligences,  whether  God,  or  angels, 
or  human  beings  supernaturally  endowed  with  a 
deeper  insight,  and  emplojang  it,  as  ordinary 
men  do  in  their  ordinary  interferences  with  the 
more  superficial  movements  of  nature, — turning  it 
from  what  it  would  have  done,  or  to  what  it 
would  not  have  done,  had  it  been  left  to  itself. 
Some  religious  minds  might,  perhaps,  be  afraid 
of  this,  as  confusing  the  distinction  between  the 
natural  and  the  supernatural.  But  we  need  not 
concern  ourselves  about   words  here.     It  would 


THE  DENIAL   OF  THE  SUPERNA  TURAL.       93 

still  be  miraculous,  wonderful,  full  of  awe.  It 
would  be  all  the  same,  so  far  as  that  moral 
power  is  concerned  on  which  we  have  been  in- 
sisting. It  would  be  accompanied  by  the  same 
fear  of  something  personal  above  or  beyond  na- 
ture. It  might  even  be  thought  to  carry  with 
it  a  greater  alarm,  making  nature  itself  a  more 
fearful  thing,  as  having,  in  its  deep  interior, 
hidden  causalties  unknown  to  our  keenest 
science,  yet  furnishing  a  means  of  startling  effi- 
ciencies to  beings  of  a  higher  knowledge,  or  to 
forces  connected  with  a  higher  human  psy- 
chology. 

But  there  are  other  irrationalities  resulting 
from  the  assumption  that  nature  is  all.  The 
statement  of  them  may  not  seem  obvious,  since 
the  position  assailed  is  of  a  kind  so  strange,  so 
absurdly  facile,  that  it  would  seem  incapable  of 
refutation  as  it  is  of  defence.  Let  us  take  the  in- 
fidel scientist's  own  view  of  it  as  an  uninterrupted, 
or  never  interfered  with,  evolution,  or  coining  out 
of  things — ever  coming  out  from  that  which  is 
lowest  in  the  remotest  past,  and  to  whose  prim- 
eval emptiness  nothing  has  ever  really  been 
added.  Then,  if  nature  is  all,  it  is  an  eternal 
evolution,  an  eternal  coming  out,  having  no  other 
end  than  such  evolving.  It  is  an  eternal  coming 
out  that  never,  in   fact,  does  come  out,  or  that 


Q4  VEDDER  LECTURES. 

goes  back  as  fast  as  it  does  come  out.  There  is 
nothing  finished  in  it,  and  there  is  excluded 
the  thought  of  an}^  perfect^  or  teXelov^  anything 
finished  in  any  world  above  to  which  this  eternal 
evolution  is  subservient.  There  are  no  such 
world,  or  Avorlds,  above  it,  for  which  nature  was 
made,  or  for  the  sake  of  which  it  is  thus  evolving, 
unwinding,  until  it  is  all  spent,  or,  like  some 
coiled  spiral,  winding  back  again  to  the  starting- 
point,  if  starting-point  is  conceivable,  and  so  on, 
and  so  on,  evolutions  of  evolutions,  for  ever  and 
for  evermore.  There  are,  strictly,  no  ends  in  the 
universe  transcending  the  working  of  this  purely 
physical  machinery  thus  ever  evolving  for  the 
sake  of  evolving!^     There  are,  then,  no  other  ends. 


*  A  higher  world  than  the  physical  necessary  to  explain  the 
physical :  This  is  the  idea  on  which  we  so  much  insist,  and  it  is 
gratifying  to  find  it  clearly  and  conclusively  stated  by  so  good 
an  authority  as  the  editor  of  "The  Nation,"  No.  517  (May  17, 
1875),  page  367,  where  he  says:  "The  affirmation  that  this 
physical  world  has  also  a  moral  meaning  (that  is,  finds  its  end 
in  a  moral  world  above  it),  is  one  that  no  argument  drawn 
from  purely  physical  science  can  impugn."  It  is,  however, 
but  another  mode  of  expressing  a  thought  drawn  from  very 
ancient  writings.  Physical  science,  ''  the  science  of  cha7ige 
and  met  ion,'''  as  Aristotle  defined  it,  cannot  determine  its  own 
place  ;  it  cannot  say  what  may  or  what  may  not  be  above  it 
in  the  immovable  spheres.  Therefore  it  is  that  this  great 
thinker  assigns  to  it  a  rank  below  the  mathematical  and  the 
theological :  ri  ^eKtwtov  ;  (pvatKy,  fiadrj/iaTLK^,  deoloyiKr/ ;  See  the 
question  brielly  stated,  Arist.  Metaph.  Lib.  x.  (xi.),  ch.  7. 


THE  DENIAL   OF  THE  SUPERNA  TURAL.       ^5 

such  as  ends  moral,  artistic,  ideal,  ineffable. 
There  are,  in  truth,  no  ends  at  all.  There  can  be 
none  ;  for  that  which  ever  terminates  in  the  pro- 
cess of  its  own  evolution  is  no  end  ;  and  if  there 
is  no  end,  then  no  idea  ;  if  no  idea,  then  no  law. 
Not  only  is  there  no  Logos  in  the  beginning, 
there  is  none  that  can  ever  be  evolved. 

The  incredibility  of  the  supernatural,  or,  in 
other  words,  the  just  demand  of  strong  evidence 
in  particular  cases,  presents  a  fair  ground  of 
argument.  That  evidence,  however,  has  been 
supplied.  In  regard  to  its  weight  there  is  mat- 
ter of  controversy,  but  here  believers  have 
triumphantly  met  the  infidel  arguments  in  the 
old  debates,  and  are  prepared  to  meet  them 
again.  The  field  of  conflict  has  in  no  respect 
changed.  Such  a  fact  as  the  Resurrection  of 
Christ  was  not,  indeed,  to  be  lightly  received ; 
but  the  proof  demanded  has  been  furnished,  not 
only  from  the  overwhelming  cotemporaneous 
testimony  of  the  most  unimpeachable  witnesses, 
sealed  by  lives  of  heroic  endurance,  and  by 
deaths  of  cruel  martyrdom,  but  from  the  standing 
spiritual  miracle  which  it  has  wrought  in  the 
world — the  supernatural,  unearthly  light  that 
came  forth  from  that  sepulchre,  and  of  which  our 
own  eyes  and  our  own  hearts  are  still  witnesses. 
That  controversy,  we  say,  stands  as  it  did  before  ; 


q6  vedder  lectures. 

but  here  comes  up  a  new  form  of  denial,  all  the 
more  stubborn  and  audacious  in  proportion  to  its 
utter  want  of  rational  ground.  The  Resurrec- 
tion of  our  Saviour  never  took  place;  no  mirac- 
ulous event,  as  recorded  in  the  Bible,  ever  had 
any  objective  reality.  And  why?  Not  simply 
on  the  ground  of  strangeness,  or  any  measurable 
incredibility  of  sense,  but  because  a  miracle,  a 
wonder  in  nature,  any  deviation  from  her  ordi- 
nary visible  course,  and  that,  too,  as  falling  under 
the  exceedingly  hmited  observation  of  our  posi- 
tive philosopher,  is.  absolutely  impossible.  This 
is  the  new  position  that  now  meets  us  every- 
where. It  is  coolly  assumed  by  the  scientist 
without  the  shadow  of  an  argument.  With  still 
less  of  reason,  if  possible,  it  is  echoed  by  many  in 
the  literary  world.  But  most  irrational  of  all  is 
the  use  made  of  it  by  a  certain  class  of  Biblical 
critics.  This  sheer  assumption  they  take  as  the 
ground  of  all  their  interpretations.  For  them  it  is 
enough  to  disprove  the  verity,  or  the  authenticity, 
even,  of  any  portion  of  the  Bible,  that  there  is  in 
it  any  mention  of  a  supernatural  event,  whatever 
the  moral  ground,  or  the  accomt)anying  moral 
reasons.  Anything  prophetic  is  at  once  set  down 
as  evidence  of  a  later  date,  and  rejected  as  a  mat- 
ter of  course.  Here  they  take  their  stand  with  a 
stubbornness  all  the  greater  as  it  is  opposed  to  the 


THE  DENIAL   OF  THE  SUPERNA  TURAL.       gy 

critical  as  well  as  to  the  moral  reason.  The  super- 
natural is  impossible,  and,  therefore,  there  need 
be  no  further  argument  about  the  passage.  This 
is  not  the  place  for  dwelling  critically  on  such  a 
position.  It  may  only  be  said  that  it  marks  the*^ 
inconsistency  of  a  certain  class  of  men  who  will 
not  let  the  Scriptures  alone,  and  yet  deny  the 
very  characteristics  that  would  chiefly  seem  to 
make  them  worthy  of  our  study.  It  is  a  blind 
overlooking  of  the  very  elements  in  which  they 
differ  from  all  else  called  mythical  or  legendary. 
It  is  a  denial  of  that  patent  moral  character  which 
is  their  standing  peculiarity,  and  without  which 
they  sink  below  the  rank  of  myths  into  sheer  cir- 
cumstantial and  statistical  lying,  a  deliberate  im- 
posture— a  charge  which,  at  this  day,  the  wisest 
RationaUst  shrinks  from  making  against  them. 
Such  is  the  treatment  they  give  to  a  book  for 
which  they  profess  a  high  respect,  but  which  can- 
not be  thus  interpreted  without  violating  their 
own  famous  canon  in  disregarding  what  is  most 

a. 

characteristic  of  the  Bible,  and  its  high  claim 
as  a  supernatural  revelation.  We  cannot  rightly 
interpret  Homer  without  conceding  to  him  a 
belief  in  his  own  mytholog}^  But  here  is  the 
difference  between  the  Scriptures  and  all  other 
narrations  of  the  marvelous.  Once  concede  a 
subjective  truthfulness  to  the  Biblical  writers, 
5 


q8  vedder  lectures. 

and  the  objective  verity  of  details  thus  given  be- 
comes irresistible.  The  only  alternative  of  escape 
from  it  is  by  taking  the  ground  which  very  few 
are  now  willing  to  take,  that  the  Scriptures  are 
designedly  and  statistically  false  ;  in  other  words, 
the  most  circumstantial  and  studied  imposition 
ever  presented  to  the  creduhty  of  mankind. 

The  main  object  in  this  lecture  has  been  the 
consideration    of  two  main  infidel  assumptions, 
the  incredibility  and  the  impossibility  of  the  super- 
natural.    The  latter,  it   cannot  be  too  often  re- 
peated, is  put  forth  without  even  the  semblance 
of  an  argument,  and  yet  with  a  confidence  that 
could  only  be  felt  in  a  mathematical  demonstra- 
tion.    Nature  is  all.     There  are  no  other  spheres 
of  being,  no  ends  transcending  its  endless  and  aim- 
less evolutions.    Let  the  narrowness,  as  well  as  the 
audacity,  of  this  assumption  be  duly  considered, 
and  the  whole  fabric  of  unbelief  built  upon  it  falls 
to  the  ground.  It  becomes  a  tohu  and  bohu,  empty, 
foundationless,  formless,  and  void.     The  idea  of 
possible  spheres  of  being  higher  than  nature,  and 
for  which  nature  itself  is  made,  at  once  sweeps  it 
all  away.     In  the  clear  light  of  such  a  thought  is 
seen  the  utter  perversity,  as  well  as  narrowness, 
of  the  lower  or  solely  physical  view.     ''  O  we  of 
little  faith  !  wherefore  did  we  ever  doubt  ?"    Such 
is  the  feeUng  when  the  mist  clears  up,  and  we 


THE  DENIAL  OF  THE  SUPERNA  TURAL.       qq 

get  into  a  way  of  thinking-  so  much  purer  and 
easier  than  the  one  that  tortures  the  intellect  as 
well  as  the  affections.  Depart  from  this,  and 
there  is  no  stopping-place  short  of  the  horrors  of 
Strauss,  with  his  dream  of  the  iron  wheels,  that, 
in  respect  to  gloomy  grandeur,  might  almost 
seem  to  vie  with  the  visions  of  Ezekiel  or  of 
Dante.  On  the  other  hand,  begin  with  this,  and 
all  is  clear.  Nature  has  a  meaning  and  a  value. 
It  becomes  itself  a  higher  department  of  the  uni- 
verse just  in  proportion  as  it  is  raised  to  this 
higher  office.  It  gets  its  true  meaning  when  thus 
regarded  as  subservient  to  more  glorious  spheres 
of  being  partially  revealed  in  the  Scriptures, 
measurably  thinkable  by  the  human  mind,  and 
suggestive  of  still  higher  things  that  "  eye  hath 
not  seen,  nor  ear  heard,  nor  the  heart  of  man 
conceived." 


LECTURE   III. 

THE   COSMICAL  ARGUMENT — WORLDS   IN  SPACE. 


LECTURE     III. 

THE   COSMICAL  ARGUMENT — WORLDS   IN   SPACE. 

Cosmical  Argument ;  Worlds  in  Space — Astronomical  Objection — Its  pres- 
sure— Trine  aspect  of  the  Universe — The  believer  charged  with  narrow 
conceptions  —  The  three  dimensions  of  being — The  additions  physical 
science  has  made  to  our  knowledge,  mainly  mathematical — Question  of 
planetary  life  still  unsettled — Ancient  ideas  of  cosmical  immensity — Rela- 
tive distances — Emotional  feeling  of  greatness  not  affected  by  number — 
Idea  of  law  in  the  Scriptures,  and  as  held  by  the  most  contemplative 
ancient  minds — The  stars  as  mighty  beings — Modern  conception  that  of 
endless  repetition  :  less  favorable  to  the  unity  of  the  cosmos  than  the 
ancient,  though  the  latter  was  grounded  on  a  more  limited  fact  knowledge 
— Idea  of  great  world  times — How  affected  by  modern  science — St.  Augus- 
tine— Reconciliations  between  science  and  the  Bible — Their  small  value — 
No  science  in  the  Bible,  a  proof  of  a  higher  inspiration — Scientific  preten- 
sions of  other  books  called  sacred — Grandeur  of  the  Bible  language — 
Heavens  in  the  plural — Eternities  in  the  plural — New  knowledge  as  a 
ground  of  new  interpretations — New  Testament  interpreting  the  Old — 
Mounting  or  germinant  senses  in  distinction  from  double  senses,  or  the 
cabalistical — Advance  of  physical  knowledge  may  have  a  similar  effect — 
New  expansions  of  old  ideas. 

The  ''astronomical  objection"  to  Christianity, 
as  it  is  most  commonly  called,  is  the  one  prob- 
ably that  presses  hardest  upon  the  thoughtful 
mind.  It  addresses  itself  so  powerfully  to  the 
imagination,  and  through  it,  at  times,  bewilders 
and  amazes,  if  it  does  not  wholly  silence,  that 
stronger  faculty,  the  reason.  It  comes  to  us  un- 
der two  aspects,  to  which  we  may  give  the  names 
of  the  stellar  and  the  cosmical.  The  one  con- 
founds us  with  the  array  of  worlds  supposed  to 
be,  like  our  earth,  the  abodes  of  life  and  ration- 

(103) 


I04  VEDDER  LECTURES. 

ality,  and,  therefore,  diminishing  to  a  great,  if 
not  an  infinite,  degree,  the  importance  which 
the  Scriptures  seem  to  attach  to  man.  The 
other  has  more  reference  to  the  origin  of  the 
cosmos  and  its  vast  times,  as  supposed  to  be  in- 
consistent with  the  scriptural  account  of  crea- 
tion. The  first  dates  mainly  from  the  discoveries 
of  the  telescope.  The  other  goes  much  farther 
back.  Cosmical  speculations  about  the  origin 
of  the  world,  the  eternity  of  the  world,  its  ma- 
terial and  dynamical  causalities,  many  of  them 
strikingly  similar  to  some  that  are  now  most  rife, 
belong  to  ancient  times — to  very  ancient  times. 
Thoughtful  men  have  been  always  thinking 
about  these  things.  Even  "  the  infinity  ot 
worlds"  w^as  a  very  old  speculation.  We  might 
call  them  the  space  and  time  aspects,  and  it  was 
first  thought  best  to  present  them  in  two  sepa- 
rate lectures,  with  separate  titles.  The  ideas, 
however,  so  intermingled  themselves,  that  one 
general  title  seemed  most  appropriate,  though 
regarded  as  embracing  two  principal  divisions. 
The  name  "  cosmical,"  then,  may  be  taken  as  the 
common  title  to  both  lectures,  or  one  more  ap- 
plicable still  may  be  found  in  an  expression  I 
have  ventured  to  employ,  though  quite  unusual. 
As  extending  beyond  both  space  and  time,  and 
ascending  to  the  still  higher  conception  of  rank 


THE   COSMICAL  ARGUMENT. 


105 


or  order  of  being,  permit  me  to  call  it  the  three- 
fold, or  TRINE  ASPECT  OF  THE  UNIVERSE, — a 
term  to  be  more  fully  explained  in  its  applica- 
tions. 

The  believer  in  the  Bible  is  charged  with 
entertaining  narrow  views  of  the  cosmos,  or  of 
the  great  whole  of  being.  Science  has  intro- 
duced enlargecTconceptions  destructive  of  the  old 
faith.  It  is  no  longer  possible  to  believe  as  Bacon 
did.  Even  Newton  can  no  more  be  cited,  as 
formerly,  in  proof  that  one  may  hold  to  the  Scrip- 
tures, and  yet  be  a  man  of  profound  and  elevated 
thought.  But  there  are  other  aspects  to  such  a 
charge,  that  might  not  only  change,  but  invert  its 
force.  Of  Newton  it  might  be  said  that  he,  at 
least,  lived  at  a  time  when  astronomical  science 
had  furnished  all  the  important  materials  for  the 
boasting  inference  before  alluded  to.  It  may  be 
safely  affirmed,  that,  so  far  as  concerns  the  ques- 
tion we  are  now  contemplating,  nothing  that  has 
since  been  discovered  gives  the  most  modern 
astronomer  here  any  advantage  over  the  devout 
Catholic  Copernicus,  or  the  pious  Protestants, 
Kepler,  Euler,  and  Newton.  Two  more  distant 
planets  have  been  barely  seen ;  a  swarm  of 
worthless  asteroids,  and  a  few  more  of  that  still 
inexplicable  class  of  bodies,  the  comets,  have  been 
added  to  the  catalogues,  but  their   bearing  on 


I06  VEDDER  LECTURES. 

the  question  is  too  small  for  computation.  It 
could  not  have  driven  Newton  from  his  faith  in 
the  Scriptures.  The  new  light  which  burst  upon 
the  world  through  the  telescope  had  bee;n  antici- 
pated by  Kepler.  To  the  others,  whose  names 
have  been  mentioned,  it  was  clearly  suggestive 
of  every  enlarged  conclusion  that  has  been,  or  is 
now,  drawn  from  that  discovery. 

Against  such  a  charge  we  need  not  hesitate  to 
use  the  shield  of  such  authorities.  But  the  ques- 
tion after  all  remains,  On  which  side  does  the  nar- 
rowness really  exist  ?  Far  be  it  from  me  to  rail  at 
science  or  scientific  men  ;  but  certainly  there 
does  sometimes  reveal  itself  among  the  more 
boasting  scientists  an  incapacity  for  moral  and 
spiritual  views  that  in  their  intrinsic  grandeur, 
throw  all  physical  discovery  into  the  shade.  In 
proof  of  such  blindness,  there  might  be  cited  this 
exceedingly  narrow  notion  that  nature  is  all,  and 
that  weak  truism  so  confidently  built  upon  it, 
that,  therefore,  there  tan  be  nothing  which  is  not 
nature — that  is,  no  supernatural.  The  charge 
against  the  religionist  seems  plausible.  No  other 
world  in  space  than  this  Httle  earth  of  ours ! 
What  a  paltry  conception!  But  take  now  an- 
other view.  Look  awa)^  from  this  thinnest  aspect 
of  mere  width,  this  outstretching  space  view  with 
its  possible,  and,  as  many  analogies  would  tend 


THE   COSMICAL   ARGUMENT.  107 

to  show,  its  probable  sameness  of  conditions,  as 
nascent,  growing,  decaying,  progressive,  retro- 
grading,—all  alike  essentially,  as  all  springing 
from  one  mother  nebula,  one  common  causal 
development,  unvaried,  as  they  would  have  us 
believe,  by  causes  or  fiats  of  a  higher  order.  Look 
above  this  mere  physical  plane  of  worlds  beyond 
worlds,  to  what  we  have  called  the  rank-aspect  of 
worlds  above  worlds.  The  question  then  would 
stand  thus :  No  other  world  or  plane  of  being 
than  the  physical,  ever  returning  into  itself,  and 
having  no  ends  out  of  itself,  no  aims  above  itself; 
no  other  world,  or  worlds,  than  those  we  can 
survey  with  our  telescopes,  or  peer  into  with  our 
microscopes — no  higher  moral  or  spiritual  sphere 
for  which  the  physical  exists,  and  without  which 
it  has  no  other  than  a  physical  value,  that  is, 
relatively  no  value  at  all!  What  an  exceeding- 
narrowness  is  here?  The  first  is  simply  a  defi- 
ciency of  fact  knowledge,  and  may,  therefore,  be 
enlarged ;  the  other  blindness  keeps  the  eye 
closed  to  all  that  light  within  which  reveals  to 
us  the  paltriness  of  the  physical,  even  in  its 
largest  spatial  and  dynamical  extent,  when  there 
is  acknowledged  nothing  beyond  and  above  it. 
It  is  thus  that  this  doctrine,  which  makes  nature 
all,  so  stultifies  itself.  Viewed  from  a  higher 
point  of  contemplation,  it  shrinks  to  a  narrow- 


I08  VEDDER  LECTURES. 

ness,  a  thinness  rather,  beyond  anything  that 
may  be  charged  upon  a  limited  space  conception 
of  the  sense  universe.  The  vast  surface  width 
that  it  gives  the  cosmos  is  all  the  more  unmean- 
ing, all  the  more  void  of  reason,  from  its  want  of 
depth  and  height. 

As  the  idea  of  geometrical  magnitude  de- 
mands for  its  perfection  the  three  dimensions  of 
length,  breadth,  and  altitude,  so  the  true  con- 
ception of  the  universe  does  not  become  full  and 
satisfying,  until  it  assumes  in  our  minds  a  trine 
aspect.  Up  and  down  are,  indeed,  relative  terms, 
and  so  Solomon  must  have  regarded  them  when 
he  speaks  of  "  the  heaven  and  the  heaven  of 
heavens."  So  all  thinking  men  from  Solomon  to 
Aristotle  and  Newton,  have  ever  regarded  them. 
But  the  ideas  they  typify  are  real.  It  is  felt  that 
there  must  be,  in  the  great  system  of  things,  a 
profundity  corresponding  to  the  altitude,  an  evil 
to  the  good,  a  darkness,  too,  a  risk  and  a  loss, 
forming  a  counterpart  to  the  light,  the  hope,  and 
the  glory.  The  cosmical  view  must  tend  to  this 
rounded  completeness,  unless  some  lower  form 
of  being  obtains  an  interest,  scientific  or  other- 
wise, that  relatively  obscures  the  higher.  Thus 
it  is  very  possible  that  the  unscientific  mind,  or  a 
thoughtful  soul  possessing  a  very  limited  sense 
knowledge,  may  have  this  trine  conception  more 


THE   COSMIC  A  L   ARGUMENT.  ioq 

perfectly  developed,  that  is,  in  better  propor- 
tions, than  another  far  excelling-  in  the  amount  of 
physical  science,  if  such  science  confine  the 
thoughts  to  one  usurp  ng  nd  absorbing  view. 
These  three  aspects,  then,  may  be  tersely  denoted 
as  the  cosmos  in  space,  the  cosmos  in  time,  the 
cosmos,  or  the  universe,  in  its  unfolded  and  un- 
folding ranks  of  being,  as  ascending-  in  their  phys- 
ical, moral,  spiritual,  hyperphysical  scales  of 
gradation  ;  the  first  analog-ous  to  width  or  breadth, 
the  second  to  length,  the  third  to  altitude,  not  in 
space- dimension,  but  in  its  ascent  towards  the 
loftiest  aim  of  all  cosmical  existence. 

The  physical  in  its  space  aspect  is,  indeed,  the 
lowest  of  all,  and  yet  it  is  the  one  out  of  which 
this  charge  of  narrowness,  as  made  against  the 
Bible  and  the  religious  thinking,  has  most  com- 
monly arisen.  Since  the  invention  of  the  tele- 
scope, worlds  in  space,  or  bodies  in  space,  has 
been  the  challenging  scientific  wonder.  It  is 
this  which  has  so  greatly  weakened,  it  is  said,  the 
old  religious  belief  It  would  not  be  easy  to 
show,  however,  that  even  here  it  had  the  effect 
contended  for,  or  that  this  ''  opening  of  the  walls 
of  the  world,"  which  the  science  of  Lucretius 
boasted  of  as  loudly  as  our  own,  extends  greatly 
beyond  what  we  may  call  the  mere  mathematical 
interest.     What  real  ideas  of  life,  and  action,  and 


no  ■     VEDDER  LECTURES. 

rationality,  and  varied  orders  of  being,  has  it  dis- 
closed to  us  ?  In  all  these  respects,  in  answer  to 
all  questions  prompted  by  them,  the  heavens  are 
as  silent  as  of  old.  The  earth  is  still  the  centre 
— the  centre  of  human  interest,  if  not  of  topical 
revolution.  It  is  not  intended  to  underrate  the 
ideas  thus  gained,  but  they  are  far  from  being 
the  greatest.  The  telescope  has  revealed  to  us — 
what?  Distance,  number,  motion,  dynamical 
relations.  This,  with  some  few  hints  in  respect 
to  gases  given  to  us  by  the  spectrum,  sums  up 
about  all  the  additions  made  to  our  knowledge 
since  the  day§  of  Galileo.  It  has  an  interest  in- 
deed, but  of  a  narrow  kind,  of  a  lower  rank  as 
compared  with  those  questions  of  destiny,  and  of 
the  aim  of  God's  eternal  kingdom,  for  whose 
solution  we  are  most  anxious,  and  without  which 
other  knowledge  is  a  tantalizing  darkness,  creat- 
ing at  each  step  more  mystery  than  it  explains. 
Worlds  have  been  discovered — so  the  term  is 
now  used  as  applied  to  stellar  or  planetarj^ 
bodies  ;  but  it  is  impossible  to  prove  that  these 
worlds,  so  called,  are  abodes  of  life,  either  in  its 
higher  or  its  lower  forms.  There  are  not  a  few 
indications  to  the  contrary.  There  are  appear- 
ances indicating  that  a  good  proportion  of  these 
cosmical  bodies,  whether  stellar,  planetary,  or 
cometary,    are    mere    wastes   in    respect   to   the 


THE   COSMICAL   ARGUMENT.  \\\ 

higher  aspects  of  being.  There  is  no  certain 
knowledge,  no  probable  knowledge  of  there  being 
in  many  of  them,  or  in  any  of  them,  the  very  first 
rudiments  of  vital  organization,  any  more  than  in 
our  earth  during  the  millions  of  ages  that  geolo- 
gists assign  to  its  primordial  existence,  whether 
gaseous,  fluid,  or  solid.  Whewell  sets  this  forth 
in  a  remark,  whose  force  strikes  us  at  once :  ''  It 
is  no  more  incredible,"  says  he,  ''that  there 
should  be  immense  space  without  life  in  any  of 
the  bodies  that  occupy  it,  than  that  there  should 
be  an  immense  time  during  which  one  body  that 
we  know^  was  in  the  same  azoic  condition." 

The  thoughtful  ancient  mind  regarded  the 
cosmical  bodies  as  being  at  immense  distances, 
and,  therefore,  of  immense  magnitudes,  some  of 
them,  probably,  larger  than  our  earth.  There  is 
evidence  that  the  mind  went  out  freely  in  this 
expansive  direction.  The  idea  was  not  depend- 
ent on  any  reduction  of  these  distances  to  deci- 
mal numbers,  that,  beyond  a  limit  by  no  means 
great,  have  only  a  notional  or  mathematical  in- 
terest. In  regard  to  the  conceptual  greatness 
nothing  is  gained  by  them,  since  10,000,  or 
10,000,000,  are  equally  beyond  the  conceptive 
power.  Old  thinkers,  without  this,  talked  even 
of  ''  the  infinity  of  worlds."  With  some  it  was 
a   favorite   speculation.     "  As  well  think  of  one 


112  VEDDER  LEC7'    RrS. 

head  of  wheat  in  a  boundless  field,"  says  Metro- 
dorus,  '*  as  of  one  world  in  infinite  space."  "  The 
aiTia''  says  Plutarch,  "  the  rational  causalities,  are 
infinite,  and  the  effects  must  correspond  ;"  there 
was  no  reason  for  the  one  that  would  not  prove 
the  existence  of  the  many.  The  ancient  mind 
had  quite  a  fair  estimate,  too,  of  the  proportional 
distances  of  the  planets,  though  they  had  no  means 
of  bringing  them  into  earthly  measurements  of 
miles  and  inches  as  deduced  from  any  known 
earthly  parallax.  The  telescope  has  helped  us 
here.  More  perfect  instruments,  and  more  perfect 
observations  have  given  us  earthly  base  lines,  and 
we  now  say  it  is  so  many  millions  of  miles,  and 
these  miles  we  can  bring  into  feet,  and,  more 
wondrous  still!  even  into  barleycorns;  but  the 
essential  knowledge,  and  the  essential  reasoning 
from  distance,  remain  very  much  the  same.  The 
conceptual  feeling  of  vastness  is  not  increased  by 
the  fiotional  estimate.  By  giving  a  dispropor- 
tioned  prominence  to  the  mathematical  interest, 
it  may  be  that  the  emotional  has  been  actually 
diminished.  According  to  the  best  evidence  of 
antiquity,  Pythagoras  held  the  Copernican  sys- 
tem, as  it  is  now  called,  in  its  completeness, 
whilst  Plato  held  it  partially.  Aristotle,  in  his  book, 
''  De  Coelo,"  condemns  it  as  built  upon  fanciful  or 
a  priori  reasoning.     It  placed  the  sun  in  the  cen- 


THE    COSMICAL  ARGUMENT.  113 

tre,  he  says,  because  the  fire  was  the  worthier, 
as  it  was  the  more  ethereal  or  heavenly  element. 
This  was  opposed  to  observation  and  sense  induc- 
tion, on  which  he  reasoned  as  the  Bacon  of  his 
times.  On  the  Pythagorean  system,  he  maintained, 
there  certainly  ought  to  be  an  annual  parallax  of 
the  fixed  stars,  or  some  of  them.  The  absence 
of  such  parallax,  therefore,  showed  the  theory  to 
be  false,  or  else  these  distances  were  not  merely 
great,  very  great,  as  he  held  them  to  be,  but 
inconceivable,  vast  beyond  any  measure  of  com- 
putation. We  are  yet  engaged  in  attempts  at 
solving  that  problem.  I  may  be  permitted  to 
refer  to  this  here,  as  presenting  a  singular  fact  in 
the  history  of  science  and  philosophy  :  The 
visionary  view,  the  a  priori  view,  as  the  Stagirite 
calls  it,  has  led  to  truth,  whilst  the  method  of 
exact  science — for  Aristotle's  argument  is  founded 
on  legitimate  sense  induction — landed  him  and 
his  followers,  for  many  ages,  into  what  is  now 
known  to  be  error.  Sense,  in  its  keener  instru- 
mental forms,  has  come  at  last  to  support  the 
visionary  view.  This  theory  of  Pythagoras  in 
respect  to  the  solar  system  was  connected  with 
his  other  sublime  doctrine  of  the  universal  har- 
mony, or  as  he  preferred  to  style  it,  the  music  of 
the  spheres.  There  was  grandeur  in  this  out- 
stretching idea,  which  the  telescope  is  only  par- 


114  VEDDER  LECTURES. 

tially  verifying;  there  was  a  sublime  emotion  in 
it,  of  more  value  than  any  science  which  lacks 
it,  however  exact  it  may  claim  to  be.  And  so 
when  David,  surveying  the  nightly  heavens,  ex- 
claimed :  "  Lord,  what  is  man?  "  Or  when  Isaiah 
said :  "  Lift  up  your  eyes  on  high,  and  behold 
all  these ;  who  bringeth  out  their  host,  who 
calleth  them  all  by  name ;  it  is  because  He  is 
strong  that  not  one  of  th-em  faileth," — it  is  very 
possible  that  there  may  have  been  a  spiritual 
interest  far  beyond  any  that  La  Place  may  have 
felt.  To  the  latter,  the  heavens  were  simply 
his  orrery,  his  diagram  for  the  better  exhibition 
of  his  mathematical  analysis.  It  shocks  all  our 
better  thinking  to  beheve  that  this  French 
atheist  had  a  higher  view  of  the  universe,  and 
of  the  power  that  rules  it  than  these  great  re- 
ligious souls  of  antiquity,  even  with  their  lim- 
ited knowledge  of  distance  and  mathematical 
relation. 

And  so,  too,  in  regard  to  the  idea  of  law, 
of  which  we  boast  as  though  it  were  a  purely 
modern  thought.  They  had  the  substantial  knowl- 
edge, and  that,  too,  in  its  purest  form.  They 
knew  that  there  must  be  a  cosmical  law,  even 
as  the  cosmos  was  one.  The  very  name  im- 
plies unity  of  organization,  and  this  is  the  very 
essence  of   law.     They  believed  that  there  was 


THE   COSMICAL  ARGUMENT.  ue 

an    order   in    the  heavens,  in  the  universal  sys- 
tem   of   things,  long-    before    epicycles,    or    vor- 
tices, or   gravitation,    or   correlated    forces    had 
been  ever  heard  of:  *'  For  ever,  O  Jehovah,  Thy 
word    is    settled    in    the    heights;"    "all  things 
stand    according    to    Thine    ordinance."     That 
there    was    such    a   law,  a   harmony,    "■  making 
peace  in  God's  high  places,"  a  unity  in  the  uni- 
verse, whatever  might  be  its  space  extent,  this 
was  deemed  of  higher  and  more  religious  value 
than  any  knowledge  of  its  numerical  details  not 
inspired    by  this    nobler    conception.     Whether 
its    energy  was   inversely  as   the  squares,  or  as 
the  cubes  of    the  distances,  or  what   those  dis- 
tances were  in  earthly  measurements, — of  all  this 
they  knev/  but  little,  even  as  we  know  but  little 
more ;  but  they  had  a  transcending  knowledge, 
a  far  higher  thought  of  it,  when  they  recognized 
it  as  GocTs  law,  God's  voice  in  nature,  His  Word 
first   uttered   in   nature's    origination,   and    still 
sounding  on  as  the  security  for  nature's  contin- 
uance.    Hence  they  gave  it  this  name  so  pecu- 
liar to  the  Scritures,  but  having  its  shadow  in 
the  ancient  Greek  or  Egyptian  doctrine  of  the 
Logos.     What    many    style    law,    using   it   as  a 
wholly  impersonal  term,  denoting  no  real  causal 
power,  but  only  a  series  of  dead  sequences,  the 
Bible   calls   "  The    Word   of  God    that  runneth 


Il6  VEDDER  LECTURES. 

very  swiftly,"  pervading  as  well  as  sustaining  all, 
and  hi  which,  as  Paul  affirms  in  his  echo  of  this 
older  doctrine  (Coloss.  i.  15,)  ra  navra  avviarrjKe, 
all  things  consist  or  stand  together.  It  was  but 
another  echo  of  the  old  Shemitic  thought  when 
Socrates,  following  Pythagoras,  calls  it  "  the 
harmony  that  binds  together  all  things  in  heaven 
and  earth."  "  He  maketh  peace  in  His  high 
places,"  concordiam  in  sublimibus  suis.  Cicero  but 
catches  the  same  idea  when  he  says,  orta  siimil 
est  lex  cum  inente  divina,  which  Hooker  only 
translates  in  that  much-lauded  utterance  of  his : 
"  Law  has  its  seat  in  the  bosom  of  God."  Mod- 
ern thought  has  enlarged  our  conception  of  the 
universe,  it  is  said  ;  but  how  is  this  done  ?  It  is 
by  making  matter  first,  the  nebula  first,  the 
lowest  first,  and  law,  love,  and  reason,  all  its 
junior  products.  Aristotle  reverses  this.  To  liaXov 
TO  dyadov,  rh  votjtov,  the  Fair,  the  Good,  the  Idea, 
they  are  first ;  they,  through  vovg,  mind,  or  intel- 
ligence, move  Love,  as  Love  is  the  great  mover 
of  all  :  Ktvet  6e  (bg  ep^fievov,  "  it  moves  it  as  being 
lovedy  ^'      This    remarkable    declaration,  which 


*  "  He  moves  it  as  being  loved."  Cudworth  follov^ing 
Proclus  in  his  commentary,  gives  a  wrong  rendering  of  this, 
making  it  too  imaginative,  or  Platonic,  as  some  would  call 
it.  He  refers  the  participle  Ipuftevov  to  Deity,  or  the  mover, 
instead  of  the  cosmos.     It  is  the  world,  or  the  created  "  Soul 


THE   COSMICAL  ARGUMENT. 


117 


might  have  been  expected  from  the  semi-poet- 
ical Plato,  moves  our  wonder  as  proceeding  from 
this  pure,  unimaginative,  passionless  intellec- 
tuality. We  find  it  in  the  xi.  book,  sec.  7  of 
his  Metaphysica,  or  ''  Things  above  nature  :''  Kivu 
61  (bg  ep(x)[ievov.  It  is  in  his  argument  concerning 
the  First  Mover  and  the  first  moving  things  ; 
dry,  some  would  call  it,  but  having  a  beauty  in 
its  very  terseness.  Law  is  resolved  into  the 
higher  idea  of  love  :  the  world  moves  because  it 
is  loved  of  the  First  Mover.     Its  charm,  as  well 


of  the  world,"  he  would  represent  as  "enamoured  with  the 
Supreme  Mind,  and  thus,  in  imitation  of  it,  continually  turn- 
ing round  the  heavens."  It  is  the  love  of  the  cosmos,  or 
its  admiration  of  the  "  First  Fair  and  First  Good,"  or  the 
world  drawn  rather  than  impelled.  This  is  beautiful,  but  it 
is  not  the  idea  of  the  sober  Aristotle.  It  is  rather  the  love 
of  the  Mover  towards  tbe  cosmos,  or  to  its  harmonious 
movement,  which  is  the  first  moving  power.  Thus,  "  the 
Good  "  (the  'kyaQov)  is  higher  in  the  eternal  order  of  being 
than  NoOf,  or  Intellect.  In  one  sense  it  is  the  'AyaOSv,  the 
Good  that  gives  being  to  the  intelligible  ;  or  as  the  Sun  in 
Plato's  splendid  comparison  {Republic,  vi.  58,  E)  ''  gives  to 
things  not  only  their  visibility,  but  also  their  generation,  so 
does  that  highest  thing,  the  Good  (in  other  places  called 
love^,  not  only  cause  the  cognoscibility  of  things,  but  also 
their  very  ''essences  and  beings.''  {Intellectual  System  of 
the  Universe,  Chap,  iv..  Sec.  xxiii.)  When  carefully  studied, 
however,  the  ideas  of  Aristotle  and  Plato  come  to  the  same 
thing :  the  first  moving  dpxh  is  not  merely  something  older 
than  matter  or  force;  it  is  Love,  or  '"the  Good,"  higher 
even  than  mind  or  idea. 


Il8  VEDDER  LECTURES. 

as  its  power,  is  in  its  conciseness ;  to  dpenrhv  koX  rh 
voTjTov  KtvEL  ov  KivoviiEvov:  "  Thc  dcsirc  and  the 
thoLiofht,  in  other  words,  Love  and  Idea,  must 
be  the  first  movers,  themselves  the  product  of  no 
preceding  motion."  Or  according  to  another 
statement  in  the  same  chapter,  mindy  vovg,  is  the 
mover  of  the  physical  world  ;  but  vovg  may  be 
said  to  be  moved  by  vorjrov,  mens  by  intellectum^ 
mind  by  truth.  Here  he  stops,  but  the  next  step 
would  have  carried  him  to  the  ''  Principium,"  in 
whom  mind  and  truth,  ideal  truth,  eternal  truth, 
which  we  cannot  think  of  either  as  non-existent 
or  as  separate  from  a  personal  mind,  are  one  and 
the  same.  This  is  the  Primitm  J/^?^'^;^^-,  the  Logos 
that  was  with  God  and  was  God.  But  as  it 
stands,  Aristotle's  argument  is  irrefragable  :  Love 
is  the  First  Born  in  the  eternal  generation  he 
describes.  Love  and  Idea,  the  Good,  and  Mind 
eternally  beholding  it,  are  above  all  motion. 
They  are  causes,  not  effects. 

In  another  chapter  (xiii.  4)  he  reasons,  in  a 
similar  manner,  against  those  old  materialists 
who  maintained  that  the  most  imperfect  of  all 
things  was  first,  even  as  their  modern  brethren 
do  in  their  nebular  theory  ;  in  other  words, 
mindless  matter  first, — force,  the  force  of  noth- 
ing, first, — contingency  first ;  and  then,  as  things 
went  on  (1  am  giving   his  very  language  in  his 


THE    COSMICAL   ARGUMENT.  ng 

account  of  these  old  atheists)  npoeXdovarjg  rrjg  tCjv 
ov-cjv  (pvGEwg,  the  good  and  fair,  mind  and  idea, 
did  somehow  appear."  He  charges  them  with 
bringing  more  out  of  less,  which  is  the  same  as 
something  out  of  nothing,  and  compares  them 
with  the  mythologizers  who  made  Night  and 
Erebus  the  source  of  all  things,  from  whom  are 
born  both  gods  and  men. 

But  in  regard  to  that  lower  conception,  the 
space  magnitude,  or  space  relations,  or  dynamical 
importance  of  bodies  in  the  universe,  it  is  all  idle 
to  say  that  these  old  minds  simply  conceived  of 
the  stars  as  glow-worm  points  of  light  twink- 
ling uselessly  in  a  solid  firmament,  or  sky,  just 
above  their  heads.  Solomon's  sublime  prayer, 
''  The  heaven  and  heaven  of  heavens  cannot  con- 
tain thee,  cannot  bear  thee,"  as  the  Hebrew  ex- 
presses it,  presents  a  conception  transcending 
anything  derived  from  the  modern  astronomy  as 
given  in  our  books.  David's  exclamation  shows 
that  he  connected  the  heavenly  bodies  with  ideas 
vastly  transcending  man's  lowly  earthly  condi- 
tion. Without  this  the  sublime  rapture  becomes 
inexplicable.  Of  the  stars  as  bodies  inhabited, 
just  as  Our  earth  is  inhabited,  these  old  worship- 
ers may  not  have  thought.  Such  an  idea  is, 
indeed,  found  in  the  Greek  poetry,  and  it  may  or 
may  not  have  been  in  the  Hebrew  mind.     There 


120  VEDDER  LECTURES. 

is  no  proof  to  the  contrary,  as  there  is  no  irra- 
tionality in  the  thought  that  it  may  have  oc- 
curred to  many  a  meditative  soul  in  the  earher 
times.  It  is  still  but  an  imaginatioii  with  us,  and 
there  was  much  to  excite  the  same  imaofination 
even  before  science  had  got  an  earthly  unit  of 
measurement.  There  is  other  proof  besides  the 
writings  of  Aristotle  that  the  ancient  men,  orien- 
tal and  occidental,  regarded  the  heavenly  bodies 
as  being  of  immense  magnitude,  and  at  incalcu- 
lable distances.  This,  however,  is  quite  clear, 
that  they  connected  with  the  stars  most  mighty 
and  glorious  existences.  "  One  star  differed  from 
another  star  in  glory,"  but  each  represented  a 
transcending  power  in  the  kingdom  of  God.  It 
was  itself  the  outshining  of  an  exalted  being,  or 
the  abode  of  an  exalted  being  ;  and  there  is  as 
much  grandeur  in  that  idea,  giving  as  high  a  con- 
ception of  the  greatness  of  the  universe  as  would 
come  from  the  thought  of  a  vast  numerical  popu- 
lation, whether  of  mollusks,  mastodons,  or  giants. 
They  were  ''  the  Hosts  of  Heaven,"  and  hence  that 
sublime  epithet  Jehovah  Tsebaoth  used  in  refer- 
ence to  space  and  rank,  as  Melek  Olamim,  King  of 
the  Eternities,  was  employed  to  denote  the  time 
aspect  of  God's  kingdom.  These  mighty  stellar 
powers  might  have  infinite  diversity,  spiritual  as 
well  as  dynamic,  whereas  the  modern  idea  seems 


THE    COSMICAL   ARGUMENT.  121 

tending  to  an  infinite  sameness.  Our  space  worlds 
are  but  endless  repetitions.  It  is  supposed,  and 
that,  too,  by  a  fair  analogy,  that  they  grow- 
as  our  earth  has  grown,  and  that  vast  numbers 
of  them  are  now  passing  through  the  same* 
chaotic,  life-lacking  stages.  Seldom  do  we  meet 
with  the  thought,  as  expressed  in  the  scientific 
world,  that  any  of  them  have  got  above  us.  To 
science  in  general  man  is  the  etre  supreme. 
Through  him  the  world  is  just  coming  into  con- 
sciousness. The  same  conclusions  some  are  de- 
riving from  the  spectrum ;  the  same  gases,  the 
same  elementary  substances,  lead  to  the  idea 
of  sameness  in  material  organization,  and  this  to 
that  of  sameness  of  life  in  its  successive  stages — ■ 
like  the  earlier  inhabitants  of  our  earth  as  adapted 
to  similar  conditions.  In  this  limited  scientific 
space  conception  of  being,  repetition  is  a  pre- 
dominant idea.  It  suggests  a  level  plane  with- 
out any  towering  superiorities,  or  it  resolves 
itself  into  an  endless  succession  of  material  tacts, 
forming  a  series  having  eventually  no  other  vari- 
ations than  those  of  space,  numerical  quantity, 
forces,  motions,  mathematically  diversified  posi- 
tions, and  relations  of  atoms.  In  a  word,  motion 
and  force,  if  the  two  ideas  can  be  separated  ;  these 
are  the  only  things,  res^  realities.     If  we  want  to 

get   any   other   sounds   from    this   flat,    tuneless 
6 


122 


VEDDER  LECTURES. 


homophony,  we  must  look  elsewhere.  We  must 
go  to  Scripture,  or  call  in  the  aid  of  some  higher 
ideas,  the  seeds  of  which  we  may  find  in  our  own 
souls.  Science  gives  no  evidence  of  spiritual 
disrnities.  With  some  it  is  even  a  boast  that  she 
does  not  find  them. 

Which  of  these  two  views  of  the  stellar  inhabi- 
tation or  domination  is  the  true  one  need  not  be 
here  inquired  ;  nor,  should  the  inquiry  be  made, 
could  science  give  us  any  answer.  What  has 
been  said  has  reference  only  to  this  claim  of 
grandeur  and  enlargement,  or  this  common 
charge  that  the  religious  idea  of  the  universe,  as 
derived  from  the  Scriptures,  is  a  narrowing  of 
the  human  mind.     But  more  of  this  elsewhere. 

The  second  head  of  this  trine  division  of  the 
universe,  or  what  I  have  called  its  time  aspect, 
belongs,  in  the  main,  to  another  lecture ;  but 
there  are  some  suggestions  in  relation  to  it  that 
connect  themselv^es  with  the  train  of  thought  in 
which  I  have  here  indulged.  There  is  a  view  of 
the  Biblical  creative  chronology  to  which  this 
charge  of  narrowness  may  be  thought  to  have 
some  application.  It  is  that  which  regards  not 
only  the  tellurian,  but  the  whole  cosmical  evolu- 
tion, as  the  work  of  one  week,  or  six  solar  days  of 
our  present  reckoning,  with  an  infinite  blank 
preceding.     A  view  very  different  from  this,  or 


THE   COSMICAL  ARGUMENT.  123 

one   that   regarded   the  times  as  immeasurable, 
and  even  ineffable,  was  held  by  the  best  thought 
of  the   Church    very   long  before   geology  as  a 
science   was  ever  heard  of     The  mediaeval  doc- 
trine of  the  cosmos   was,  in  truth,  a  narrowing 
from  the  wider  science  of  the  classical  world,  and 
from  the  largeness,  moreover,    and    freedom    of 
earlier    patristic    interpretations    of   the    Bible. 
Geographical  knowledge,  too,  had  actually  sunk 
within    smaller    limits,    and    the    discoverer    of 
America  but  revived  cosmical  and  tellurian  ideas 
which  were   familiar  to  some  of  the  freer  and 
bolder  thinkers  of  antiquity,  such  as  Pythagoras, 
Aristotle,  Eratosthenes,  Ptolemy,  and  Pliny.    Dur- 
ing these  mediaeval  times  there  had  come  in  more 
of  the  thaumaturgic  spirit,  and  the  mechanical 
idea  of  creation,   instantaneously,  or  almost  in- 
stantaneously,   out    of    nothing  — not    only    as 
respects   the   primal    force    or   matter,  but    the 
separate  parts  and  products  of  the  great  struc- 
ture— became   a   favorite    one.     It  may  be  said, 
too,  that  it  was  more  taken  up  with  the  theolog- 
ical fact  of  creation  than  with  the  manner  or 
idea.     God  made  the  world  ;  in  a  religious  point 
of  view   that    was  all   they  sought  or  cared  to 
know.     The  divine  power,  the  divine  command, 
the  idea  of  instantaneousness,  or  of  very  brief  ti  mes, 
were  dwelt  upon  as  having  more  of  this  wonder- 


J  24  VEDDER  LECTURES. 

working  aspect,  which  the  spirit  of  the  times  re- 
garded   as   more  closely  allied  to  the    religious 
feeling.     This  blinded  the  mind  to  those  other 
time  ideas  of  birth,  growth,  succession,  evolution, 
bringing  forth,  one  thing  coming  out  of  another, — 
in  a  word,  of    tinii"in,    "  generations,"  natures, 
genesis,  which  to  one  who  now  reads  the  sublime 
Bibhcal  account,  under  the  influence  of   a  dif- 
ferent  thinking,  appear  so    prominent  that  the 
wonder  is  they  should  have  been  so  overlooked. 
Now  there  is  no  need  of  shrinking  from  the  ad- 
mission that  the  change  of  the  current  thought 
in  this  respect  may  be  attributed,  in  a  good  de- 
gree, to  the  influence  of  modern  science  ;  though 
there  never  was  a  time  when  such  an  interpreta- 
tion as  that  of  Saint  Augustine  would  have  been 
deemed  heretical.     He  held  it,  and  others  held  it 
in  his  day,  as  they  have  since,  for  an  interpreta- 
tion having  good  exegetical  grounds  in  the  letter 
and  spirit  of  the   account.     No  science   forced 
them  to  it.     They  found  ample  support  for  the 
idea  of  extraordinary   times  in   the   remarkable 
language  of  the  Scriptures,  and  in  the  peculiar 
style  they  employ  in  setting  forth  the  great  facts^ 
in  themselves   so  ineffable,  of  origin  and  escha- 
tology. 

Revelation  is  sometimes  degraded  by  attempts 
to  which  there   is  given   the  sounding  name  of 


THE    COSMICAL   ARGUMENT.  125 

''reconciliations  between   religion  and  science." 
They  are  too  apt  to  make  science,  or  what  as- 
sumes to  be  such,  the  constant,  and  the  Bible  the 
variable  quantity  in   the   equation.     The  Scrip- 
tures must  conform,  or  they   must  be  made  to 
conform.     It  is  not  a  work  of  fair  exegesis,  but  of 
possible  accommodation.     It  is  enough,  for  ex- 
ample,   that    any   utterly   unproved    hypothesis 
denies  a  distinct  beginning  of  the  human  species, 
anything  by  way  of  organization  or  inspiration, 
anything  in   the  physical,  or  the  spiritual,  con- 
stituting a  specific  difference,  and  making  that  to 
be   Jioino   which   before   was  not  homo.     Such  a 
sweeping  conclusion  in  respect  to  divine  possi- 
bilities is  taken,  at  once,  as  ''established  science," 
and   straightway   some   prepare    themselves    to 
meet  the  case  by  the  theory  of  an  ideal  Adam. 
This  will  do,  perhaps,  until  another  demand  is 
made  in  the  name  of  science,  and  that  is  met  in 
an  equally  prompt  and  easy  way  by  the  theory 
of  an  ideal  Christ,  an  ideal  incarnation.    Scripture 
shakes  hands  with  science.     It  is  reconciled,  as 
the  saying  is,  and  this  feat  is  accomplished   by 
going  into   the   very  interiora  of  the  Christian 
creed,  and  making  the  Second  Adam  as  unreal 
as  the   First.     Thus   we   have    our   Bibles   and 
science  too.    We  can  laud  both  on  the  same  plat- 
form, and  this  is  great  gain.     We  say  it  boldly  : 


126  VEDDER  LECTURES. 

better  reverentially  bury  the  old  book  than 
treat  it  in  this  way.  The  boldest  denial  of  infi- 
delity is  not  more  insulting  than  such  a  defer- 
ential mockery.  New  facts,  in  seeming-  conflict, 
from  well-ascertained  history,  or  well-established 
science,  may  set  us  to  re-examine  former  inter- 
pretations, or  former  applications  of  them  ;  but 
we  must  have  an  honest  faith  or  none  at  all.  A 
purely  mythical  view  of  the  creative  account  is 
better  than  any  scientific  forcing  it  will  not 
bear. 

There  is  no  science  in  the  Bible,  either  in  its 
language,  its  style,  or  its  assumed  teaching.  At- 
tempts to  find  it  in  the  artless  subjectiveness  of 
its  truthful  holy  writers  only  leads  to  delusion. 
The  language  of  these  seers  of  ineffable  things  is 
grounded  on  their  modes  of  conceiving  ;  their 
conceptions  are  shaped  by  the  knowledge  of  their 
day.  It  is  their  true  inspiration  that  takes  this 
language,  and  these  conceptions,  as  the  best 
representatives  of  facts  and  ideas  lying  back  of  all, 
and  which  the  dialect  of  science  and  philosophy 
fails  to  reach  as  much  as  the  vulgar  thinking.  In 
truth,  nothing  shows  more  strongly  the  fact  of 
some  divine  supervision  of  the  Bible,  than  the 
absence  of  any  such  scientific  or  philosophic 
language,  or  of  a  style  assuming  to  be  that  of 
any    special    thinking,  or   of  anything    esoteric, 


THE   COSMIC  A  L  ARGUMENT.  127 

such  as  has  characterized  those  who  have  as- 
sumed to  be  religious  teachers  in  all  ages.  This 
is  wholly  lacking  even  in  cases  where  there 
would  seem  to  have  been  the  strongest  tempta- 
tion to  such  a  mode  of  speech.  A  divine  wis- 
dom is  here.  The  scientific  or  philosophic 
language  of  one  age  is  different  from  that  of 
another.  No  scientist  would  dare  to  say  that 
our  own  had  reached  a  finality.  It  may  appear 
even  childish  a  thousand  years  hence.  Now 
something  has  kept  the  Scriptural  writers  from 
thus  compromising  the  wondrous  book  of  which, 
through  the  ages,  they  have  been  the  human 
media  of  transmission.     - 

In  its  account  of  the  ineffable  truths  of  origin, 
the  language  of  the  Bible  is  optical,  phenome- 
nal, the  vehicle  of  first  appearances.  It  is  a 
universal  lano;-uao:e  addressed  to  the  most  un- 
changing  of  the  human  faculties.  Its  outside 
symbols,  the  same  for  all  ages,  represent  the 
ineffable  facts,  the  interior  causalities,  the  ulti- 
mate causalities,  that  lie  behind  the  phenomenal 
at  whatever  distance.  The  speech  of  science 
can  do  no  more.  It  sounds  out  a  mile  or  two 
farther  from  the  shore  of  the  directly  seen.  It 
brings  out  a  few  more  interior  appearances,  but 
they  are  still  appearances,  (f)aiv6[j.eva,  having  ever 
some  things  yet  more  interior  0/  ivhich  they  are 


128  VEDDER  LECTURES. 

appearances.  The  difference  is  that  the  Scrip- 
tures, in  such  cases,  take  the  first  phenomena, 
the  most  visible  outward  of  "■  the  things  seen," 
as  the  immediate  representatives  of  the  deep  un- 
seen, whether  near,  or  far  off,  or  even  infinitely 
remote.  It  names  them  from  such  unchanging 
outlying  appearances.  Thus  there  is  no  pre- 
tense of  being  near  the  mysterious  ultimate 
causation — such  a  pretense  as  science  sometimes 
makes,  though  still  *'  far  wide,"  still  holding  on 
to  something  they  call  a  cause,  but  which  the 
next  increase  of  the  magnifying  power  turns 
again  into  a  phenomenon — an  appearance  ot  some- 
thing farther  back,  and  still  farther  back,  that 
appears  through  it.  Thus  do  they  ever  verify 
the  deep  idea  of  inspiration,  that  '*  the  things 
which  are  seen  are  made  from  things  unseen," 
from  causalities  that  lie,  and  must  for  ever  lie, 
beyond  the  reach  of  sense,  or  any  science 
founded  on  sense.  From  this  never-finished 
process  of  turning  supposed  causalities  into 
new  appearances,  the  dialect  of  science  must  be 
ever  becoming  obsolete.  But  the  Scripture 
never  commits  itself  to  any  mode  of  speech  that 
must  change  with  changing  knowledge  of  these 
nearer  phenomena ;  and  this  is  a  striking  dif- 
ference between  the  Bible  and  other  books 
called    sacred.     The  Koran    fails    here.     It  evi 


THE   COSMICAL  ARGUMENT.  129 

dently  affects  sometimes  a  scientific  language, 
or  supposed  to  be  such;  as  when  Mohammed, 
or  his  commentators,  give  the  exact  number  of 
the  heavens,  and  even  the  distances,  in  miles,  be- 
tween them.  Something  of  the  same  kind  may  be 
traced  in  the  oldest  books  of  all  other  religions, 
such  as  the  Hindoo,  the  Persian,  and  the  Chinese. 
There  are  appearances  of  attempts,  however 
crude,  at  something  like  scientific  theory — feeble 
efforts  at  a  sort  of  philosophising,  or  the  utter- 
ance of  something  seemingly  above  the  common 
mind,  an  assumption  of  some  esoteric  wisdom, 
or  a  pretentious  teaching  style  as  of  persons  ini- 
tiated into  mysteries  above  the  ordinary  intelli- 
gence. There  is  nothing  like  this  in  the  Bible. 
In  that  book  all  human  thought  is  put  upon  a 
level.  From  beginning  to  end,  the  Scriptures 
go  on  their  majestic  way,  manifesting  every- 
where this  strange  unconsciousness.  There  is 
nothing  of  the  thaumaturgic,  or  the  wonder- 
making,  even  when  narrating  the  greatest  won- 
ders. When  telling  of  God's  descent  in  the 
awful  fiames  of  Sinai,  or  of  the  song  of  the 
angels  at  the  Redeemer's  birth,  they  are  as  calm 
and  unpretending  as  when  narrating  the  pastoral 
life  of  Jacob,  or  the  friendship  of  David  and 
Jonathan.    The  Bible  never  calls  attention  to  the 

grand  things  it  is  saying,  or  going  to  say.    There 
6* 


130 


VEDDER  LECTURES. 


is,  ni  style,  nothing  legendary  or  sensational 
about  it.  It  nowhere  stops,  or  stoops,  to  remove 
objections  ;  it  never  betrays  any  anticipation  of 
cavils.  Its  perfect  subjective  truthfulness  ;  when 
this  is  understood,  the  right-minded  reader  finds 
it  so  difficult  to  resist  the  evidence  of  its  ob- 
lective  credibility.  So  honest,  so  pure,  so  true 
within,  it  cannot  be  false  without. 

Thus  the  Bible  never  commits  itself  to  any 
compromising  language.  It  speaks  of  the  heav- 
ens in  the  plural,  as  it  does  of  eternities  in  the 
plural ;  but  it  does  not  number  them  as  the  Mo- 
hammedans and  some  of  the  Jewish  Rabbins  and 
Talmudists  have  done.  It  speaks  of  the  third 
heavens,  indeed,  but  only  as  the  symbol  of  the 
ineffable  space-transcending  glory.  It  has  its 
"  heaven  of  heavens,"  like  its  olam  of  olams, 
or  world  of  worlds,  its  all-comprehending 
sphere,  its  all-containing  time.  It  leaves  these  as 
ever  expanding  ideas,  capable  of  holding  any 
conceptional  content  that  any  science  may  ever 
put  into  them.  We  may  attempt  to  make  it 
more  scientific  by  describing  these  plural  heav- 
ens as  atmospherical,  astronomical,  planetary, 
stellar,  nebular,  but  all  this  never  exhausts  the 
Scriptural  language.  It  takes  in  something  be- 
yond all  physical  worlds  which,  in  their  widest  ex- 
tent, are  but  the  lowest  spheres  in  the  kingdom  of 


THE   COSMICAL   ARGUMENT. 


131 


God.  It  carries  the  Qiind  to  that  transcending- 
ovpavog  to  which  "Christ  lifted  up  His  eyes" 
when  He  said  :  "And  now,  Father,  glorify  thou 
Me  with  the  glory  which  I  had  with  Thee  before 
the  world  was,"  nph  rov  rbv  tcoaiiov  elvat.  The  Bible 
language  is  not  to  be  limited  by  the  conceptual 
faculty,  whether  that  of  Solomon  or  of  Herschell. 
It  points  to  the  glory  which  is  above  the  heavens, 
over  the  heavens,  stcper  coelos.  It  goes  up,  up,  to 
the  throne  of  God,  the  eternal  seat  of  the  highest 
power  and  the  highest  intelligence,  wherever 
that  may  be,  or  in  whatever  space  relations, 
whether  conceived  as  central,  altitudinous,  pro- 
found, or  all-present.  "  He  looketh  down  to 
behold  the  things  that  are  in  the  heavens,  as  well 
as  the  things  that  be  on  the  earth."  It  is  a  locus 
all-transcending  ;  it  is  a  language  all-satisfying-, 
intelligently  guiding  the  common  religious  mind, 
whilst  giving  a  view,  if  we  choose  to  take 
it,  inexhaustible  by  science  or  any  amount 
of  inductive  knowledge.  The  Bible  state- 
ments of  origin,  its  view  of  the  universe  in  its 
relation  to  God — the  only  view  of  any  spiritual 
value — so  transcends  all  sense-knowledge  that  it 
can  never  truly  come  in  collision  with  it,  or  re- 
quire reconciliation. 

And  yet,  in  saying  this,  there  is  not  excluded 
a    proper  deference  to  science  as  suggestive  of 


132  VEDDER  LECTURES. 

something   in  these    ever-mounting   senses  that 
certain  pi-econceived  limitations  may  have  kept 
us  from  seeing.     We  apply  this  principle  of  new 
knowledge    expanding,    though    not    contradict- 
ing, old   language,  and  we  find  no  difficulty  in  it 
when  we    interpret   the  earlier  Scriptures  from 
the  standpoint    of  a    higher  theological    knowl- 
edge derived  from  the  later  revelations.     Christ 
and    Paul    give    us    a    better    understanding   of 
Moses  and  the  Prophets.     The  mind  receives  an 
enlargement  from  the  New  Testament  writings, 
and  we  legitimately  carry  this  back  to  the  better 
interpretation    of  the    Old,  discovering   thereby 
*'  wondrous  things  out  of  God's  ancient   Law." 
The  Pentateuch,  the   Psalms,  the   Prophets,  yea 
the  history,  the  genealogy,  and  the  chronology  of 
the  Old  Testament  seem  to  carry  a  higher  sense. 
Its   devotional    assumes    a    more    heavenly,   its 
ethics   a   more   spiritual    aspect.      That    higher 
sense   was,    seminally,    there    before,    and  some 
minds  of  unwonted  spirituality  had,  even  then,  a 
glimpse  of  it.     It  is  not  a  mere  kabala,  accommo- 
dation, or  type  even.     It  is  not  a  double  sense, 
or  a  mere  arbitrary  mystical  sense.  It  is  a  mount- 
ing sense,  a  germinant  sense,  built  firmly,  indeed, 
upon   the   letter,  and  rising  legitimately  from  it, 
but   now    satisfying,   or  tending  to   satisfy,  that 
glow,    and    warmth,    and    elevation    of    diction 


/ 


THE   COSMICAL   ARGUMENT.  133 

which  before  seemed  so  strange  in  its  connection 
with  facts  of  a  seemingly  lower -order.  David  and 
Pindar  both  seem  to  be  celebrating  temporal  vic- 
tories, temporal  deliverances  ;  but  what  a  dif- 
ference in  their  styles !  What  a  rising  is  there  in 
the  spiritual  emotional  as  produced  by  the  He- 
brew Psalms  when  we  read  them  in  the  revealing 
light  of  David's  greater  Son,  bringing  out  the 
rays  that  lay  latent  in  the  spectrum,  or  were,  in 
comparison,  but  dimly  seen.  It  is  like  the  feel- 
ing with  which  the  newly-converted  soul  takes 
up  the  whole  volume  of  Scripture.  What  has 
changed  ?  The  language  is  the  same.  The  logic- 
al significance  of  words  in  their  logical  relations 
are  the  same  ;  but  how  sublimely  have  they  risen 
in  what  may  be  called  the  scale  of  spiritual 
emotion  !  Though  lexically  the  same,  what  a 
glory  seems  now  to  invest  certain  oft-recurring 
words :  God,  life,  salvation,  righteousness,  truth, 
mercy,  holiness,  forgiveness,  the  fear  of  the  Lord, 
the  kingdom  and  people  of  the  Most  High,  the 
Anointed  One  of  whom  such  glories  are  pre- 
dicted, but  which  so  shrink  when  applied  to  an 
earthly  monarch,  or  an  earthly  salvation.  "  Jeho* 
vah  reigns,  let  earth  rejoice."  Had  we  ever  read 
that  before  ?  But  there  they  stand,  the  same 
words  as  of  old  before  the  Psalms  became  the 
undying  liturgy  of  the  church ;    but  how  have 


134  VEDDER  LECTURES. 

thej  all  ascended,  not  to  a  different  exegetical 
defining,  but  to  a  higher  plane  of  significance. 
The  temporal  salvation  ;  how  it  expands  into  the 
greater  evangelical  idea,  not  by  taking  a  new 
sense,  strictly,  for  God's  salvation  is  ever  in 
essence  the  same,  even  as  the  faith  that  looks  to 
it  is  ever  the  same — but  by  rising  up  towards 
that  measurement  which  is  indicated  by  the 
otherwise  inexplicable  glow  of  the  language. 

This  train  of  thought  might  be  farther  pur- 
sued. It  has,  however,  been  dwelt  upon  here 
simply  as  the  basis  of  another  application,  not 
of  the  same  kind,  indeed,  but  suggestive  of  a 
similar  analogy.  If  an  advance  of  theological 
knowledge  may,  legitimately,  have  this  retro- 
spective effect  in  our  interpretation  of  the  older 
Scripture,  why  may  not  an  assured  advance  in 
physical  knowledge  give  something  of  the  same 
legitimate  advantage,  putting  us  in  a  position  to 
see — if  it  is  really  God's  glory  we  wish  to  see — 
more  of  vastness  in  the  Scriptural  language,  a  vast- 
ness  truly  there,  though  veiled  by  narrowing  con- 
ceptions as  much  outside,  in  their  assumed  lite- 
ralness,  as  the  later  knowledge  that  demands 
conformity  ?  Interpreted  from  itself  it  has  ample 
room  for  both. 

For  example :  the  great  time  ideas  had  been 
acknowledged  by  the  best  minds  of  an  early  age. 


THE   COSMICAL  ARGUMENT.  135 

The  older  versions,  Greek,  Latin,  and  Syriac,  had 
given  them  with  remarkable  fulness.  The  strange 
pluralities  of  the  words  by  which  they  are  set 
forth  appear  in  the  Hebrew  with  a  breadth  and 
power  that  cannot  so  well  be  expressed  in  our 
modern,  European  tongues,  in  consequence  both 
of  the  vajjueness  and  of  the  limitations  that  have 
entered  into  the  age-worn  corresponding  terms. 
Hence  it  is  that  there  have  been  given  to  such 
expressions  as  "  eternities,"  "  King  of  eternities," 
"  kingdom  of  all  eternities,"  '*  world  of  worlds," 
**  ages  of  ages,"  '■' secula  seciilortun^'  altogether 
inadequate  representatives.  This  Bible  language 
had  become  narrowed,  too,  from  other  causes, 
such  as  the  growing  cosmical  ignorance 
before  alluded  to,  and  the  too  exclusive  predomi- 
nance of  that  religious  dogma  of  the  naked 
divine  power  which  favored  the  instantaneous  or 
mechanical  view  of  creation,  and  thus  threw  into 
the  background  the  mighty  significance  of  some 
of  the  chief  w^ords  entering  into  the  creative 
account.  But  when  the  thoughts  of  men  were 
turned,  though  in  another  way,  to  the  antiquity 
of  the  earth,  and  the  evidence  of  it  all  around  us 
— as  capable  of  estimate  by  the  common  mind, 
when  aroused  to  it,  as  by  the  most  scientific — 
then  this  sublime  Scriptural  account  of  the 
world's  evolution  was  found  to  have  a  vastness  felt, 


136  VEDDER  LECTURES. 

indeed,  before  by  the  profoundest  minds,  though 
lacking  the  scientific  data  for  reducing  it  to  a 
definite  conception.  There  was  something  great, 
mysterious,  immeasurable — no  t'loughtful  man 
could  read  the  First  of  Genesis  without  feeling 
that — and  thus  there  came  easily,  or  without  the 
sense  of  forcing,  the  idea  that  there  must  be  a 
correspondence,  in  the  picture,  between  the 
great  causation  and  the  great  effects,  the  great 
evolutions  and  the  great  times  through  which 
they  were  divinely  evolved.  This  Scriptural  ac- 
count is  most  unique.  It  never  grew  as  myths 
and  legends  are  known  to  grow.  It  is  a  whole, 
as  it  must  have  presented  itself  to  one  mind. 
The  thought,  then,  suggests  itself  at  once.  A 
narrative  of  things  so  wholly  out  of  the  way 
of  any  human  knowledge,  direct  or  traditional, 
is  either  a  studied  invention  —  a  thing  very 
hard  to  be  believed  of  that  age,  and  of  events 
involving  such  a  religious  grandeur  of  idea — 
or  its  claim  to  credence  must  be  grounded  on 
the  alleged  fact  of  some  vision  revelation.  The 
pictorial  style  confirms  this.  It  is  a  painting, 
and,  as  such,  demands  a  standpoint  and  a 
perspective  that  shall  bring  the  whole  repre- 
sentation into  harmony.  In  rendering  easier  the 
attainment  of  such  a  pictorial  view,  science  has 
aided    us.     It    has    helped  us  to  appreciate  the 


THE   COSMICAL  ARGUMENT.  137 

vast  thought  that  is  in  the  Scriptures  with  more 
objective  clearness,  if  not  with  more  subjective 
fulness  of  emotion.  In  taking  this  vantage 
ground,  we  do  not  hamper  ourselves  by  any  def- 
erence to  outside  authority.  We  explore  the 
Bible  anew,  but  with  the  feeling  that  we  are 
not  putting  upon  it  a  new  sense.  It  is  simply 
getting  from  this  subhme  Bibhcal  frontispiece 
what  lies  fairly  within  the  scope  of  its  mighty 
purpose,  and  the  full  significance  of  its  most 
vivid  as  well  as  most  suggestive  language. 


LECTURE   IV. 

COSMICAL  ARGUMENT  CONTINUED. — WORLDS 
IN  TIME. 


LECTURE    IV. 

COSMICAL  ARGUMENT    CONTINUED. — WORLDS     IN 

TIME. 

The  creative  account— Six  solar  days  —  Creation  in  time — Ideas  of  growth, 
succession,  evolution — Difficulties  of  the  solar  day  theory — The  \ford  day — 
TheJ>eriodicai  in  distinction  from  the  mere  meta//ioricai  sense — Language 
of  birth  and  growth,  as  patent  on  the  first  of  Genesis — Proportio7i  in  times 
necessary  to  its  conceivability— Feeling  of  vastness  in  the  creative  account 
— Its  exceeding  sublimity — Its  language  to  be  treated  as  self-interpreting — 
The  words  darkness,,  nighty  Hg^i-,  day,  to  be  determined  from  the  account 
itself— The  first  day  determines  all  the  rest — The  whole  creation  called 
a  day — No  mention  of  short  days  in  other  parts  of  Scripture  —  No  abso- 
lute measure  of  time — Ratios  alone  conceivable — Impression  of  vastness 
in  other  creative  descriptions  of  the  Bible,  Psalm  xc — Mountains  born — 
Birth-travail  of  the  earth — Proverbs  viii — Leaves  an  impression  of  immense 
antiquity — Job  xxxviii — The  sea  born — The  Hebrew  terms  expressive  of  a 
struggle  of  forces — The  ungovernable  sea — Psalm  civ — Summary  of  Biblical 
creative  ideas — Charge  of  narrowness  against  the  Scriptures  repelled — 
Stuart  and  Hitzig  on  the  absence  of  divided  time  in  the  world  to  come — 
The  view  unscriptural — The  Malkuth  kol  Olamitn^  or  "kingdom  of  all 
eternities"— iEonic  words  of  the  New  Testament. 

The  Bible  in  its  relation  to  the  space  aspect  of  the 
universe  was  considered  in  the  previous  lecture. 
The  tiine  aspect  in  connection  with  the  infidel  ar- 
gument drawn  from  our  later  cosmical  and  geo- 
logical science,  next  demands  our  attention.  The 
Mosaic  account  of  the  terrestrial  primordia  has 
become  one  of  the  principal  grounds  on  which 
modern  scepticism  assails  the  credibility  of  Rev- 
elation.  At  the  same  time  it  has  not  received 
from  our  theologians  and  commentators  that  at- 
tention which  its  importance,  as  an  outpost,  at 

(141) 


142 


VEDDER  LECTURES. 


least,  if  not  the  very  citadel  of  divnne  truth,  so 
imperatively  demands.  Its  defence  has  been,  in 
a  great  degree,  left  to  the  mere  assertion  of  the 
truisms  before  alluded  to,  such  as  the  impos- 
sibility that  the  book  of  nature  should  contra- 
dict the  book  of  inspiration,  since  God  is  the  au- 
thor of  both  ;  and  then  the  argument  that  follows 
is  drawn  almost  wholly  from  science,  or  some 
assumed  scheme  of  agreement,  instead  of  being 
derived  from  the  Bible  itself,  or  any  attempt  at 
an  exposition  of  its  wondrous  ideas  as  grounded 
on  fair  and  careful  exegesis. 

The  theory  of  six  solar  days,  each  of  twenty- 
four  hours  as  now  measured  by  the  risings  and 
settings  of  the  sun,  is  seldom  maintained  at  the 
present  day,  whether  the  Mosaic  account  is  sup- 
posed to  refer  to  the  terrestrial  or  to  the  cosmical 
creation.  This  more  limited  view  was  the  one  gen- 
erally held,  and  truthfully  held,  we  may  say,  when 
the  purely  religious  idea  of  a  divine  creation 
was  the  one  prominently  demanded,  and  there 
were  no  outside  views  pressingly  calling  atten- 
tion to  the  processes  and  the  times,  although  it 
could  not  have  failed  to  be  seen  by  the  thought- 
ful reader  that  creation  in  time,  creation  by 
order,  by  evolving  successions,  generation,  birth, 
growth,  was  an  idea  lying  on  the  very  face 
of  the  letter,  and  repeated  with  emphatic  variety 


THE   COSMICAL  ARGUMENT. 


143 


of  diction.  Still  the  length  of  these  times,  the 
evolutions  implied  in  this  peculiar  language  of 
creation,  or  rather  of  generation,  were,  in  the 
main,  overlooked  as  subordinate,  or  non-essential 
ideas.  It  cannot  be  denied,  however,  that  they 
drew  the  attention  of  some  thoughtful  minds, 
and  those  the  greatest  known  in  the  early  ages  of 
the  Church.  This  has  been  already  alluded  to. 
But  the  question  comes  to  us  for  our  own  exe- 
getical  determination  :  Is  there  a  time  aspect,  a 
real  time  aspect,  in  the  creative  account?  Does 
the  evidence  lie  upon  its  very  face?  Does  this 
temporal  idea  enter  into  it  as  well  as  those  of 
power  and  a  divine  causation?  Does  the  very 
harmony  of  this  wonderful  narrative,  the  true 
perspective  of  this  marvelous  picture,  require 
that  there  should  be  also  a  true  proportion  in 
these  times,  so  as  to  make  it  a  veritable  creation  in 
time,  instead  of  a  mere  show  of  it  out  of  analogy 
with  the  temporal  processes  fairly  suggested  by 
the  generative  language  employed  ?  There  can 
be  no  doubt  of  the  ideas  that  would  have  arisen 
in  our  minds,  had  no  time  word  been  used. 
The  great  eventualities,  as  narrated  one  after 
the  other,  would  have  resolved  themselves  into 
corresponding  periods.  The  **  seas  gathering," 
the  "  land  appearing,"  its  surface  "drying,"  the 
waters ''  swarming"  with  life,  the  earth  ''  bringing 


144  VEDDER  LECTURES. 

forth,"  the  "  herb-seedinp-  seed,"  man  makino* 
his  appearance  as  the  latest  evolution  of  the 
evoking  Word  ;  all  this  would  have  associated 
itself  with  an  harmonious  ideal  of  times  and 
successions,  having  something  of  that  true  pro- 
portion without  which  the  events,  as  events, 
cannot  well  be  conceived.  No  language  in  it- 
self can  be  more  opposed  to  that  idea  of  me- 
chanical or  outside  fabrication,  which  is  some- 
times ignorantly  charged  upon  the  Mosaic 
account. 

Now,  does  the  introduction  of  the  word  day 
control  all  this  other  peculiar  phraseology,  or 
is  it  to  be  controlled  by  it,  especially  in  view 
of  its  well-known  cyclical  or  periodical  idea  in 
all  the  earliest  forms  of  speech,  and  still  show- 
ing its  traces  in  numerous  modern  idioms? 
This  is  the  great  question  for  the  interpreter, 
although  there  are  others  of  equal  importance 
that  demand  attention  in  connection  with  it. 
Give  us  room  here,  if  the  language  allows  it. 
Do  there  fairly  come  in  the  ideas  of  vastness,  of 
great  successions,  of  mighty  evolutions  originated 
by  a  series  of  divine  fiats  ?  If  the  picture  gives 
us  this,  it  gives  us  something  more  to  complete 
the  harmony  of  its  divine  perspective.  Have  we, 
then,  this  room  ?  Have  we  this  mighty  order 
from  chaos  to  light,  from  light  to  life,  from  life 


THE   COSMICAL  ARGUMENT.  j^q 

to  humanity, — commencing  in  darkness,  form- 
lessness, and  vapor,  rising-  by  a  succession  of 
most  sublime  stages,  through  the  vegetable  and 
the  animal,  up  to  a  world  of  rational,  moral,  and 
spiritual  being  ?  Have  we  this  room  ?  Then  let 
science  fill  up  the  details  of  the  grand  outline 
according  to  her  means,  and  at  her  leisure. 
There  will  always  be  room  enough  in  it  for 
her  as  well  as  for  the  theologian.  Whether  draw- 
ing on  fact  or  fancy,  she  will  always  find  her- 
self somewhere  within  the  bounds  of  this  roll 
of  development.  Even  should  one  succeed,  or 
fancy  that  he  had  succeeded,  in  bringing  the 
Scriptural  account,  in  all  its  stages,  to  a  perfect 
agreement  with  some  scientific  scheme,  without 
any  overlappings  or  interlappings,  or  deviations 
of  parallel,  it  would  be  of  little  avail,  since 
there  is  no  knowing  how  long  that  scientific  lan- 
guage might  maintain  its  stamp,  or  how  long 
that  scientific  scheme  would  last  before  being 
superseded  b}^  another. 

But  this  is  a  lecture  and  not  a  treatise.  Only 
a  few  points,  therefore,  can  be  presented,  and 
they  are  all  that  are  necessary  for  a  fair  un- 
derstanding of  the  whole  question,  resting,  as  it 
does,  on  certain  strong  grounds  which  can  be 
clearly,  yet  briefly,  enumerated.     There  is,— 

ist.  The  immense  difficulty  of  reconcihng  the 


/ 


J  .5  VEDDER  LECTURES. 

primordial  epochs  of  creation,  as  given  in  Genesis, 
with  the  conception  of  a  first  day,  having  its  be- 
ginning even  before  the  hght,  and  yet  made  as  a 
day  is  now  made  by  the  rising  and  setting,  or  by 
the  setting  and  rising  of  the  sun.     If  it  be  said 
that  we  need   not  suppose  those   diurnal   com- 
mencings  and  endings,  and  especially  that  first 
one  of  all,  to  be  made  as  now,  but  in  some  other 
mysterious  manner,  that  would  seem  like  giving 
up  the  prime  ground  of  those  who  have  most  to 
say   about   hteral   interpretation,    or   about    the 
word  day  meaning  day,  that  is,  an  ordinary  solar 
day,  and  nothing  more.     If  it  is  not  an  ordinary 
day,  then  it  is  an  extraordinary  day,  or  a  dies 
incffabilis,  as  Augustine  calls   it,  and  they  know 
not   how  far  this   may  lead  them.     Some    such 
idea   of  ineffabihty   seems  to  have  been  in  the 
early  Jewish  mind  in  the  days  of  Joseph  us,  if  we 
may  judge  by  what  he  says  of  it  in  the  begin- 
ning of  the  first  book  of  his  Antiquities.     If  any 
choose  to  introduce  the  word    mysterious,  they 
must  make  more  of  it.     If  they  talk  of  unknown 
hypothetical  methods,  they  should  be  modest  in 
their  denunciations  of  those  whom  they  charge 
with  profanely  departing  from  the  plain  letter  of 
the  account.     The  mysterious,  the  ineffable,  are 
here  undoubtedly,  but  it  may  be  in  the  very  nature 


THE   COSMICAL  ARGUMENT.  ^aj 

of  the  day,  or  its  ineffable  duration,  as  well  as  in  the 
manner  of  its  phenomenal  production.  The  one 
is  no  more  an  indispensable  element  of  the  diurnal 
idea  than  the  other.  A  certain  duration  is  no  more 
a  fixed  component  of  the  notion  suggested  by  the 
term,  than  a  stated  rising  and  setting  of  the  sun, 
or  some  revolution,  real  or  apparent,  by  which 
they  are  produced.  The  making  of  such  a  solar 
day  in  the  primordial  epoch,  as  described  in  the 
account,  and  giving  it  its  exact  length  of  twenty- 
four  hours,  half  for  the  day  and  half  for  the  mys- 
terious night  that  precedes,  is  a  difficulty  not 
created  by  science,  not  to  be  cured  by  it.  It  is 
patent  on  the  very  face  of  the  account,  if  we 
would  make  it  consistent  with  itself,  and  it  must 
have  been  as  evident  to  the  early  unscientific 
mind  to  whom  the  vision  was  first  given,  and  by 
whom  it  was  first  narrated,  as  it  is  to  us.  In  his 
ecstatic  vision,  he  sees  no  sun  rising  over  the 
dark  waters  of  the  tehom,  but  he  hears  a  voice 
saying,  ''Let  there  be  light,"  and  a  light  shines 
out  of  the  chaos,  and  upon  the  chaos ;  formless- 
ness gives  way  to  form  and  visibility ;  and  this  is 
the  morning  of  his  first  day. 

Our  second  ground  of  reasoning  is  the  periodi- 
cal sense  of  the  word  day,  and  especially  as  it  is 
used  in  the  early  languages,  classical  and  Shem- 


148  VEDDER  LECTURES. 

itic.  Closely  connected  with  this  is  the  sense 
of  day  as  a  completed  time,  or  the  epochal  idea, 
as  it  may  be  called  : 

"  Longa  dies  perfecto  temporis  orbe." 

This  epochal  sense  is  a  very  different  thing  from 
the  metaphorical^  with  which  some  would  con- 
found it,  and  which,  by  itself,  would  furnish  a 
very  weak  support  for  so  grave  an  argument. 
Tropical  or  metaphorical  would  denote  merely  a 
metaphora,  or  transfer  to  another  form  of  thought, 
presenting  merely  an  analogy  of  cause,  effect,  or 
incidental  resemblance.  Day,  however,  as  epoch 
or  cycle,  carries  with  it  the  essential  idea  of 
completed  period  with  its  completed  work.  It  is 
a  rounded  course,  determined  not  by  mere  dura- 
tion, however  measured,  but  by  an  order  of  move- 
ment having  its  proper  commencement  and  end- 
ing as  made  by  two  contrasted  states,  as  of  rest 
and  progress,  torpor  and  movement,  death  and 
life,  birth  and  growth,  appearance  and  disappear- 
ance, light  and  darkness,  or  evening  and  morning 
— the  one  the  privation  or  minimum,  the  maxi- 
mum or  complement,  of  the  other.  Any  one 
such  application  of  the  word  day,  dies,  yom,  to  any 
completed  cyclical  ordo,  is  no  more  metaphorical 
than  any  other.  Of  such  a  time  period  the  solar 
day  is  to  us  the  nearest,  shortest,  and  most  visible 


THE    COSMICAL  ARGUMENT, 


149 


representative.  Hence  it  easily  enters  language 
as  its  readiest  denominator.  Thus  day  is  used 
for  ordo,  period,  series  of  events,  longer  or 
shorter,  whilst  year  is  rarely,  generation  more 
frequently,  but  week,  month,  century,  never  em- 
ployed for  any  such  purpose.  The  language, 
then,  is  not  arbitrary,  nor  metaphorical,  nor  de- 
pending on  the  fancy,  but  has  a  law  determining 
the  class  of  ideas  to  which  it  is  applied.  Hence 
dies  in  Latin  is  used  for  the  period  of  human  life, 
as  77//£pa  in  Greek  is  sometimes  synonymous  with 
aicjv,  or  age,  used  in  the  same  way — the  period  of 
existence,  hfe  with  its  evening  and  morning,  its 
coming  out  of  darkness,  and  its  emergence  into 
light — venire  in  diem,  as  the  Romans  said.  That 
we  are  not  forcing  things  here  is  shown  by  the 
undeniable  fact,  that  this  cyclical  idea  is  attached 
to  the  word  yom  in  the  second  chapter,  where 
it  most  unmistakably  represents  the  whole  pro- 
cess, or  rounded  period  of  creation,  whether  re- 
garded as  tellurian  or  cosmical.  It  is  all  one  day 
from  the  primordial  chaos  up  to  man:  "These 
are  the  generations  of  the  earth  and  heavens,  in 
the  day  the  Lord  created  them" — in  their  being 
created.  The  Hebrew  is  exegetical :  Qjj^l^nS'  "  in 
the  process  called  their  being  created" — the  in- 
finitive in  this  case  being  more  pictorial  than 
any  noun  representing  simply  the  fact  or  event 


jtQ  VEDDER  LECTURES. 

of  creation  could  possibly  have  been.  ''Before 
the  day"  was,  or  ''from  the  day  "  I  am  He.  Isaiah 
-.  xliii.  13.  The  day  of  the  prophet  must  be  the 
great  day  mentioned  here — dies  longissmia  perfecto 
tempores  orbe.  It  immediately  suggests  to  us  the 
rifupav  alojvog,  the  aeonic  day,  or  the  day  of  eternity, 
as  the  language  is  used.  II.  Peter  iii.  18.  We 
also  think  of  the  last  great  day  of  which  the 
Scripture  so  solemnly  speaks,  that '' consumma- 
tion of  the  ages,  GvyreXeia  tgJv  al6vG)v^  that  rounded 
series  of  events,  be  it  longer  or  shorter,  when  the 
closing  physical  changes  shall  take  place,  or  the 
present  mundane  system  shall  be  wound  up  as 
preparatory  to  a  new  day  of  creation  still  more 
complete  and  glorious.  The  language  of  the 
Scriptural  protology  is  simply  parallel  to  that 
of  its  eschatology  ;  and  there  should  be  no  hesi- 
tation in  applying  the  same  mode  of  exegesis  in 
the  one  case  that  we  so  readily  admit  in  the 
other.  It  might  seem  like  marring  the  artless 
grandeur  of  this  old  language  to  admit  the 
thought  of  anything  studied,  and  yet  it  does  look 
as  though  the  writer  had  been  led  to  use  this  re- 
markable expression  of  dajf  as  applied  to  the 
whole  series,  to  prevent  mistake  in  its  application 
to  the  six  divisions,  or  as  a  key  to  its  wider  sig- 
nificance, when  the  course  of  knowledge  should 


THE   COSMICAL  ARGUMENT.  151 

prepare  the  way  for  its    more  easy,  but  not  less 
natural  reception. 

The  third  thing  demanding  attention  presents 
itself  in  the  words  before  alluded  to  as  denoting 
growth,  succession,  evolving,  or  one  thing  coming 
out  of  another,  birth,  generation  ;  in  a  word,  all 
that  is  meant  by  natter e,  (pvatg,  ^i"ibi^,  in  the  old 
languages,  and  their  direct  derivatives  in  the  mod- 
ern ;  the  very  name  Genesis,  as  coming  from  the 
Greek  Septuagint  version,  being  suggestive  of 
this  whole  class  of  ideas  ;  since  ^  (SlfiXog  yevetrecog,  the 
book  of  Genesis,  or  Generation,  is  but  a  transla- 
tion of  the  Hebrew  ^ilbin  r]i^'  "These  are  the 
generations  of  the  heavens  and  the  earth."  The 
wonder  is  that  such  a  kind  of  language  should 
have  been  so  overlooked.  There  they  are,  these 
words  of  birth  and  evolution,  and  they  are  not 
mere  meaningless  expletives  to  be  shrivelled  up 
in  their  wide  significance,  by  being  all  made  de- 
pendent on  the  contracted  notion  we  attach  to 
the  single  word  of  time.  There  must  be  propor- 
tion in  the  chronology,  or  the  time  idea,  so  essen- 
tial an  element  in  the  account,  cannot  keep  the 
emphasis  its  importance  so  evidently  demands. 
Now,  in  determining  the  proportion,  there  is  no 
exegetical  reason  why  the  word  daj/  should  over- 
rule the  force  of  all  these  significant  terms,  rather 


152  VEDDER  LECTURES. 

than  hat  itself  should  be  interpreted  by  them. 
Without  it  these  other  words  become  wholly 
arbitrary,  empty  of  any  available  meaning  or  ap- 
pHcation — in  short,  utterly  unthinkable.  It  could 
not  have  been  meant  that  there  was  a  real 
''growth  "  and  '*  birth,''  a  real  "  bringing  forth,"  a 
real  "  seeding  seed,"  as  by  some  real  causation 
passing  through  all  its  stages,  and  yet  that  the 
cedar  of  Lebanon,  from  the  quickening  of  its  root- 
germ  in  the  earth  to  the  waving  of  the  topmost 
branch  of  its  lofty  height,  was  produced  in  the 
same  time,  or,  rather,  in  an  hour  or  so  of  the  same 
time,  with  *'  the  hyssop  that  groweth  out  of  the 
wall."  To  instantaneous  production,  reason 
could  have  made  no  objection.  As  a  divine  fact, 
had  it  been  so  revealed,  no  science  could  deny 
its  possibility.  But  the  other  supposed  mode,  or 
that  of  great  evolutions  in  inconceivably  dispro- 
portionate times,  or  bearing  no  analogy  to  the 
relations  of  parts  thus  evolved,  is  delusive,  mag- 
ical, inconceivable,  unthinkable.  The  language 
suggests  a  process,  generative  and  physical,  and 
yet  that  process  lacking  the  element  of  ratio, 
without  which  it  cannot,  as  a  process,  be  made 
an  object  of  thought  at  all.  We  cannot  conceive 
of  growth,  or  the  passing  of  an  organism  from  one 
stage  to  another,  except  as  a  passage  through 
every  intervening  point,    and    in  proportionate 


THE   COSMIC  A  L  ARGUMENT.  jt^ 

times.  The  crowding,  therefore,  of  processes  so 
immensely  different  into  times  having  so  little 
of  a  corresponding  ratio,  has  all  the  difficulty  of 
instantaneousness,  without  its  grandeur  and  its 
conceivable  rationality  as  the  product  of  almighty 
power. 

This   disturbance   of    the    conceptive   faculty 
comes  from  the  assumption  of  the  short  solar  day 
of  a  few  hours,  so  apparently  conflicting  with  the 
other  no  less  marked  and  unmistakable  language 
of  birth,  succession,  evolution.     Which  is  to  con- 
trol?     Is  the  single  time  word  to  be  so  inter- 
preted as  to  take  all  meaning  out  of  the  others? 
This  would   be  all  the  more  strange,  when  we 
bear  in  mind  that  that  same  word  is  plainly  used 
for  the  whole  great  process  of  creation,  from  its 
primordial  amorphic  state,  until  it  ends  in  the 
Sabbath  and  in  humanity.     What  right  has  any 
one  to  call  such  reasoning  far-fetched,  or  to  re- 
gard it  as  putting  a  force  upon  the  language  of 
Scripture  ? 

The  fourth  thing  to  be  noticed  in  this  summary 
of  an  argument  is  the  aspect  of  vastness— 1  can 
use  no  better  term— which  gives  its  sublime 
effect  to  this  whole  Mosaic  account,  and  especi- 
ally to  its  beginning.  It  is  somehow  felt  by  a 
thoughtful  mind,  even  when  acquiescing  in  that 
twenty-four  hour  dav  view,  which  nothing  from 
7^ 


jtA  VEOrER  LECTURES. 

without  has  as  yet  disturbed.     Vast  power,  vast 
bodies,  vast  forces,  vast  movements,  vast  changes, 
vast  causations,  vast  effects  !     There  comes  along 
with  it  the  feeling  of  vast  time.     A  feeling  we 
have  called  it,  for  such  it  is  even  before  it  as- 
sumes the  form  of  a  distinct  exegetical  idea.     It 
was  this  which  so  affected  the  mind  of  Augustine, 
and  led  him  to  characterize  these  times  as  "  dies 
ineffabiles;'  days  unspeakable,  either  as  immense 
evolutions,  niorae, ''  delays  "  in  nature,  as  he  some- 
times calls  them,  suspensions,  or  as  transcending 
the  idea  of  time  altogether.     It  is  this,  too,  which 
makes  the  vision  theory  of  the  creative  revela- 
tion so  acceptable,  as  giving  a  relieving  perspec- 
tive, carrying  what  may  really  seem  short,  and  is 
short,   as   measured   on  the  canvas,  to  the   vast 
proportion   required  for  the   pictorial  harmony. 
This  may  not  be  the  experience  of  all  in  the  study 
of  the  passage,  but  it  becomes  very  strong  and 
vivid  when  a  contemplative  mind,  divesting  itself 
of  all  prepossessions,  and  giving  full  admission  to 
this  sense  of  grandeur,  regards  the  account  as  szii 
generis,  self-interpreting,  defining   its  own  terms 
from    the    very    nature   of  the  ideas  presented. 
Thus  read,  this  impression  of  vastness  comes  in 
so  naturally,  that  it  affects  our  sense  of  the  times. 
The  panorama  so  spreads  out  before  us  ;  the  dark 
abyss  of  waters,  the  breaking  light,  that  first  mys- 


THE   COSMICAL   ARGUMENT.  155 

terious  evening  of  the  formless  chaos,  the  morn- 
ing, the  separation,  the  naming,  the  evoking 
Word — all  is  so  great,  so  sublime,  on  the  vaster 
scale,  that  the  forcing,  if  there  be  any,  ap- 
pears wholly  in  the  narrowing  interpretation. 
Am  I  overstating  this?  Where  in  ancient  or  in 
modern  literature  can  there  be  found  a  page  of 
such  superhuman  grandeur  of  conception,  of  such 
soul-awing  majesty  of  diction  as  this :  ''  In  the 
beginning  God  created  the  heavens  and  the  earth. 
And  earth  was  formless  and  void,  and  there  was 
darkness  on  the  face  of  the  deep.  And  the  breath 
of  Elohim  was  brooding  on  the  face  of  the 
waters.  And  God  said,  Let  it  be  light,  and  there 
was  light.  And  God  saw  the  light  that  it  was 
good.  And  God  divided  between  the  darkness 
and  between  the  light ;  and  the  light  called  He 
day,  and  the  darkness  called  He  night ;  and  there 
was  an  evening,  and  there  was  a  morning — day 
one."  The  last  clause  is  plainly  exegetical,  or 
explanatory  of  what  precedes.  It  tells  us  what 
this  night  and  morning  were.  It  explains  this 
mystery  of  a  day  not  measured  by  the  sun,  but 
having  an  ineffable  division  of  its  own  :  And  thus 
was  there  an  evening,  and  /////j  there  was  a  morn- 
ing— day  one.  The  process  itself  defines  them 
in  its  two  great  evolving  stages  :  And  thus  there 
was  a  night,  and  thus  there  was  a  day,  making. 


156  VEDDER  LECTURES. 

SO  far  as  this  Mosaic  account  is  concerned,  the 
primordial  time  in  the  earth's  greater  chronology. 
To  interpret  this  rightly,  look  not  abroad.  Keep 
to  the  record,  and  you  will  find  its  meaning  there. 
There  can  be  clearly  traced  all  the  ideas  corre- 
sponding to  the  mighty  words — the  night,  the 
day,  the  evening,  the  morning,  for  which  you  are 
seeking.  The  account  is  self-interpreting.  What 
was  that  primeval  night  which  comes  first  in 
this  creative  movement,  as  it  does  in  all  tradi- 
tional derivations?  The  answer  is  most  distinct. 
It  was  the  darkness  that  was  resting  on  the  face 
of  the  deep — the  void  and  formless  tehom.  How 
long  had  it  been  thus  resting?  No  answ^er  is  re- 
turned from  the  silence.  To  get  twelve  hours 
here  before  the  light,  to  find  any  rule  for  their 
measurement,  their  commencement,  or  their  sep- 
aration from  anything  preceding — to  do  this  is 
the  forcing,  as  I  have  elsewhere  shown,  and  shall 
not  therefore  dwell  upon  it  in  this  rapid  sum- 
mary. And  where  is  the  morning?  Once  more 
Ave  interrogate  the  oracular  language.  The  an- 
swer comes  again  with  unmistakable  clearness : 
It  was  the  light  which  the  divine  Word  evolved 
from  the  darkness — the  light  that  shone  not  only 
on  the  darkness,  but  ''  out  of  the  darkness,"  ek  rod 
oKOTovg,  as  the  Apostle  understands  it.  These  two 
events  make  the  chronological  day,  the  primeval 


THE    COSMICAL  ARGUMENT.  157 

period  with  its  own  peculiar  work  and  history 
separate  from  all  others.  It  is  God  himself  who 
names  and  defines  them,  whatever  may  be  the 
import  of  that  mysterious  language.  He  gives 
us  our  lexicon  here  :  And  the  darkness  He  call- 
ed night,  and  the  light  called  He  day — and  thus 
there  was  an  evening,  and  thus  there  was  a  morn- 
ing— day  one.  We  get  a  reason  for  the  strange 
repetition  of  that  solemn  heraldic  formula,  taking 
away  all  its  seeming  tautology.  Why  so  often 
said,  and  with  such  a  proclamatory  sameness,  un- 
less to  call  attention  to  something  extraordinary 
in  the  mornings  and  evenings  so  announced? 
The  view  taken  is  drawn  fairly  from  the  lan- 
guage arousing  wonder  like  the  similar  heraldic 
announcements  of  the  seals  and  trumpets  in  the 
Revelations.  But  now  attempt  to  force  in  the 
measurement  of  twenty-four  hours,  and  what  a 
collapse  of  grandeur,  what  a  derangement  of 
proportion  seems  immediately  to  take  place.  I 
have  dwelt  upon  this,  because  anxious  to  give 
the  impression  so  strong  and  clear  to  my  own 
mind,  that  these  ideas  of  vastness  come  directly 
from  the  face  of  the  account,  as  read  in  its  own 
clear  light,  and  are  not  forced  upon  it  by  any  out- 
side pressure.  An  interpretation  thus  pressed 
upon  us  from  without  undermines  faith  instead  of 
affording   anv    sure    foundation.     We    use    with 


1^8  VEDDER  LECTURES. 

confidence  the  language  of  Augustine :  '*  These 
are  God-named  times,  God-divided  times." 
There  is  a  vastness  in  the  language,  an  infinite 
suggestiveness  compared  with  which,  so  far  as 
sublimity  is  concerned,  the  geological  decimals 
are  utterly  frigid  and  unemotional.  The  mind 
is  not  narrowed  in  believing  the  Mosaic  record 
of  creation. 

The  first  great  day  determines  all  the  rest. 
They  all  have  the  mark  of  this  higher  chronol- 
ogy. They  were  all  divine  evolutions.  In  each 
of  them  the  old  chaotic  darkness  and  formless- 
ness more  and  more  disappear.  New  mornings 
break  forth,  "shining  clearer  and  clearer  unto 
the  perfect  day,"  when  humanity,  as  it  had  been 
physically  evolving  out  of  the  dust  of  all  below, 
becomes  complete  in  the  primus  homo,  made  such 
by  the  inspiration  of  God,  and  set  forth  as  the 
t)^pe  of  a  new  and  higher  order  of  being.  Here 
is  no  forcing.  It  is  a  view  that  comes  from 
the  very  spirit  of  the  sublime  passage,  breath- 
ing through  every  mysterious  word,  and  filling 
the  soul  of  the  devout  reader  with  a  feeling  of 
its  truthfulness,  as  well  as  of  its  glory.  It  re- 
quires no  scientific  hypothesis.  It  transcends 
science.  It  needs  no  **  reconciliation  ;  "  for  it 
stands  out  of  the  reach  of  all  collision. 

In    the    fifth  place  I   would  briefly  call  atten- 


THE   COSMICAL   ARGUMENT.  i^q 

tion  to  this  aspect  of  vastness,  these  ideas  of 
great  time  successions,  as  they  appear  in  other 
parts  of  the  Bible.  They  have,  indeed,  a  poet- 
ical character,  but  this  strengthens  the  argu- 
ment. It  was  this  very  aspect  on  which  I  am 
insisting  that  made  the  creative  times  such  a 
grand  subject  for  poetry,  and  called  out,  in  rela- 
tion to  thetn,  such  a  poetical  pictorialness.  And 
here  is  to  be  noticed,  in  the  first  place,  a  fact  that 
demands  special  attention.  It  is  the  absence, 
from  all  other  parts  of  the  Scriptures  of  any  al- 
lusion to  these  brief  days  as  such,  or  as  being 
solar  in  their  character.  The  Fourth  Command- 
ment forms  no  real  exception  to  this  remark  ; 
since  it  is  simply  a  repetition  of  the  earlier  lan- 
guage, carrying  with  it  the  same  scale  of  inter- 
pretation, and  confirming  it  by  the  undeniable 
difference  that  must  be  admitted  between  the 
divine  and  human  days,  if  we  would  preserve  at 
all  the  analogous  parallel  between  the  human 
work,  the  human  rest,  on  the  one  hand,  the  inef- 
fable divine  work,  and  the  ineffable  divine  rest 
on  the  other.  There  is  no  longer  type  and  anti- 
type, no  temporal  sign  of  the  Ionian  Sabbath, 
when  both  are  reduced  to  the  same  measure- 
ment. Now  in  all  the  other  passages  which 
are  not  repetition^v  but  vivid  descriptions  drawn 
from  this  original  picture,  the    brief  solar  da}^. 


l5o  VEDDER  LECTURES. 

had  it  been  really  conceived  as  such,  would  have 
been  the  most  memorable,  the  most  likely  to 
be  recalled,  of  all  the  features  of  the  account. 
It  would  have  been  the  great  wonder,  had  the 
Hebrew  mind  truly  received  from  it  such  an 
idea  of  chronological  brevity.  But  no  such 
feeling  anywhere  shows  itself.  In  some  places 
we  have  what  seems  to  be  a  representation  of 
instantaneousness  :  "He  spake  and  it  ivas,  He 
commanded  and  it  stood ;  "  but  that  refers  to  the 
divine  Word,  or  Fiat,  as  accomplished  in  its  very 
utterance — *'  the  Word  running  very  swiftly," 
to  use  the  language  of  the  Psalmist,  or  as  a 
very  early  apocryphal  writer  interprets  it,  6 
Aoyo^  6i7]iU3)v  7Td(77]g  Kivrjoecjg  KcvrjTiKcjTspog,  ''  the  per- 
vading Word  having  a  more  rapid  movement 
than  all  motion  ;  "  to  us,  indeed,  the  slow  course 
of  natui'e  and  the  ages,  to  God,  swifter  than 
any  electric  current.  To  the  divine  mind  all 
effects  must  be  patent  in  their  causes,  whether 
natural  or  supernatural,  and  so  the  first,  Avhich  is 
this  outgoing  Word,  is  the  veritable  fulfilment 
of  the  remotest  sequence.  This  is  shown  in  that 
solemn  formula  so  oft  repeated  in  Genesis,  n^  "in^1> 
"  and  it  was  so,"  it  stood  firm  ;  the  nature  com- 
menced by  the  fiat  had  in  it  all  that  should  be 
evolved  until  that  seminal  force  was  spent, 
or    had    prepared  the   way  designed  for  a  new 


THE   COSMICAL  ARGUMENT.  i6l 

evolution.  But  we  know  from  the  account  it- 
self, that  neither  in  respect  to  the  universal  or 
any  partial  development,  was  it  instantaneous. 
It  was  a  creation  in  time.  Such  is  a  prominent 
idea  of  the  representation.  Was  it  real  or 
seeming  ?  Had  it  relative  proportion  in  its 
parts?  For  of  time,  irrespective  of  its  ratios, 
we  have  no  more  any  absolute  measure  than  we 
have  of  space.  It  is  an  axiom  of  Newton  that 
the  space  worlds  might  all  exist  within  the 
compass  of  what  we  call  an  inch,  and  yet  every 
ratio  perfectly  maintained  as  now  existing  be- 
tween the  parts.  We  are  forced  to  admit  the 
same  of  time.  The  earthly  history  might  all  lie 
within  the  extent  of  a  minute,  and  yet  with  a 
perfect  proportion  in  every  measure  of  its  event- 
ualities. Thus  regarded,  rapidity  of  growth  is 
wholly  relative,  though  still  growth  in  the  truest 
sense  of  the  word.  We  have  something  like 
this  before  our  very  eyes.  In  the  few  weeks' 
incubation  of  the  ^^^  there  is  a  series  of  trans- 
formations, without  leap  or  discontinuance,  a 
transition  through  every  stage,  and  with  as  many 
eventualities  as  Darwin's  imagination  finds  in 
the  ages  intervening  between  a  portion  of  the 
mundane  ^^^  of  the  nebulous  fluid  and  the 
perfect  species  as  it  now  exists.  Till  science 
can    explain    this,  it    should  be  more  modest  in 


l62  VEDDER  LECTURES. 

its  clainis  to  understand  the  secret  of  life  and 
the  origin  of  worlds.  In  fact,  time  absolute, 
having  no  relation  to  other  times,  is  inconceiv- 
able. It  is  ratio  that  makes  its  rationality  as  an 
object  of  thought.  With  it,  time  properly  begins. 
Proportion  is  demanded,  or  the  ideas  of  birth, 
growth,  order,  succession — in  a  word,  ot  genesis 
or  generation, — become  wholly  illusory.  With- 
out it,  it  is  not  succession, — the  succession  of 
causality;  it  is  not  order;  it  is  not  natural; 
it  is  not  supernatural,  originating  nature  and 
working  in  it.  It  is  contranatural,  unnatural, 
out  of  all  order,  out  of  all  analogy.  It 
lacks  alike  the  grandeur  of  instantaneousness, 
and  the  reasonableness  of  a  proportional  evolu- 
tion. The  language  employed  in  Genesis 
would  not  have  been  used  for  a  causality  which 
is  neither  timeless,  nor  having  the  proportions 
which  a  real  chronology  demands. 

We  see  this  in  studying  those  other  passages 
in  the  Bible  of  which  creation  forms  t',e  theme. 
There  is  nowhere  in  them  any  allusion  to  this 
wonder  of  time  suspension,  as  in  the  miracles  of 
Joshua  and  Hezekiah.  A  far  greater  marvel 
would  it  have  been,  far  more  likely  to  enter 
into  the  thought  and  demand  the  attention,  had 
such  time  brevities,  or  time  suspensions,  been 
really  regarded  as  belonging  to  the  story  of  crea- 


THE   COSMICAL  ARGUMENT.  163 

tion,  and    as    characterising  its  great  eventual- 
ities.    What   a  mighty  series !     Light   evolving 
from   a  primeval  chaos,  waters  dividing,  an    at- 
mospherical firmament  uprising,  seas  gathering 
to  their  beds,  oceans  subsiding,  lands  upheaving, 
the    dry    soil     appearing,     coming     into    view, 
making  itself  visible,   as    the   pictorial    Hebrew 
gives  it  by  an  optical    deponent    verb  so   sug- 
gestive of  gradualness — the  waters  teeming  with 
life  of  every  kind  from  the  infusoria  to  the  tan- 
ninim,  or  grea.t  monsters  of  the  deep — the  ground 
briitging  forth  from  the  fungus  to  the  oak — the 
celestial  bodies  beginning  their  time  divisions — 
man  at  last  derived  in  some  way  from  the  pre- 
vious   elements    of    natuie,    his    physical    thus 
coming  from  the  dust, ''  first  of  the  earth  earthly," 
then  inspired  by  God,  separated  from  nature  by 
the  divine   image,  raised   above   nature — in   an 
ineffable  manner  constituted  a  sexual  duality — in- 
vested with  the  dominion  of  the  world — wonders 
like  these,  evolutions  like  these,  and  all  taking 
place  between  sun  and  sun   of  a  24-hour  solar- 
(3ay — a  creation  in  time  indeed,  and  that  makes 
it  the  greater  wonder,  but  without  the  propor- 
tions which  such  an  immense  diversity  of  works 
would  demand  in  a  real  causal  or  time  process 
wherein    the    parts    bore  a  due  relation,  to  say 
the  least,  to  each  other!     Now  this  might  have 


164  VEDDER  LECTURES. 

been.  Our  argument  is  not  now  to  be  under- 
stood as  contending  against  the  possibility  of 
such  a  series  of  events  in  themselves  considered, 
or  the  credibility  of  such  a  time  hastening,  or 
time  suspension.  It  is  the  exceeding  improb- 
ability, the  inconceivability,  I  might  almost 
say,  of  the  fact,  that  such  a  wonderful  dis- 
proportion between  the  times  and  the  succes- 
sions so  graphically  set  forth  should  have  ac- 
tually been  in  the  thought  of  the  Psalmist,  and 
other  Scriptural  writers  who  dwell  upon  the 
creative  scenes,  and  yet  without  the  least  men- 
tion of  it,  though  forming,  as  it  would  have  done, 
the  great  marvel  of  the  account. 

Are  we  not  justified,  then,  in  the  conclusion 
that  the  creative  account,  of  which  the  poetical 
writers  of  the  Bible  are  so  full,  did  not  so  pre- 
sent itself  to  the  old  Hebrew  mind  ?  The  fact 
is  most  significant  in  respect  to  the  earliest  inter- 
pretations of  this  most  ancient  document. 

In  proof,  let  me  first  refer  especially  to  Ps.  xc, 
civ.,  Prov.  viii.,  and  Job  xxxviii.  From  all  these 
we  derive  a  peculiar  impression.  It  is  that  same 
feeling  of  vastness  by  which  we  are  affected  in 
reading  the  narrative  in  Genesis  ;  vastness  of 
power,  vastness  of  event,  vastness  of  time,  all 
alike  transcending  measurement.  Now,  from 
none   of  these  later  pictures,  if  studied  by  them- 


THE    COSMICAL   ARGUMENT. 


165 


selves,  would  such  an  idea  of  solar  days,  or  of 
comparatively  brief  time  successions,  have  ever 
been  obtained.  In  all  of  them  the  idea  of  gieat 
evolutions  in  correspondent  times  is  strikingly 
suggested,  as  it  is  also  in  the  Persian  cosmogony, 
evidently  a  copy  of  this  old  painting,  but  in 
which  '*  six  times  "  appear  as  the  translation  of 
the  "  six  days."  It  may  be  referred  to  as  one  of 
the  strongest  proofs  in  respect  to  that  oldest  un- 
derstanding of  this  matter  which  is  now  said  to 
have  been  forced  upon  us  by  modern  science. 
In  the  Biblical  passages  referred  to,  if  we  regard 
them  as  standing  by  themselves,  there  is  nothing 
to  interfere  with  the  largest  exegesis.  The  great 
ideas,  the  JnilVitl^  generations,  evolutions,  coming 
out  of  one  thing,  or  of  one  state  of  things,  from 
another,  appear  everywhere,  both  descriptively 
and  etymologically.  They  present  vividly  every 
conception  of  the  old  account  except  that  of  the 
brief  day.  I  have  already  remarked  on  that 
early  title  as  given  in  the  beginning  of  Gen.  ii., 
''the  generations  of  the  heavens  and  the  earth." 
The  language  of  Job  and  the  Psalms  might  be  re- 
garded as  a  commentary,  or  even  as  a  transla- 
tion. So  the  Greek  title  before  alluded  to,  ^i^Xoq 
yeveaecog,  the  book  of  Genesis,  has  something  about 
it  most  significant.  There  can  hardly  be  a  doubt 
that   this  name^  and   the   other  generative  terms 


J 56  VEDDER  LECTURES. 

soundinsT  then  in  the  near  vernacular  of  the 
Septuagint  version,  did  exert  an  influence  on  the 
early  Greek  Church,  and  especially  on  men  like 
Origen  and  Clement,  in  predisposing  them  to 
the  wider  interpretation  of  times  and  causalties. 
The  very  word  Gejiesis,  although  it  is  an  exact 
representative  of  the  Hebrew  Hlbin.  ^vas  un- 
favorable to  any  idea  of  arbitrary  or  mechan- 
ical fabrication.  Had  that  name  been  given  to 
our  EnHish  version  :  "  The  Book  of  Generatiojts  " 
— the  generations  of  the  earth  and  heavens — it  is 
not  too  much  to  say  that  it  would  have  greatly 
modified  the  common  thinking  on  this  great 
subject. 

The  language  of  the  XC.  Psalm  has  an  unmis- 
takable reference  to  the  creative  and  anti-creative 
times.  The  allusion  is  not  simply  to  ancient  his- 
torical times  on  earth,  to  which  the  olamic  or 
asonian  words  are  sometimes  applied  ;  for  it  was 
at  a  period  before  "■  the  hills  were  born,"  that  God 
existed,  dblS?  15?"!  tDbl3?)2,  from  Olam  to  Olam, 
d-nh  rov  alCjvog  kcll  EO)g  rov  aldvoq,  a  S(BCiilo  in  scEcuhun, 
''  from  world  to  world."  Before  the  mountains 
were  born  :  It  is  the  passive  of  the  verbal  root  of  the 
noun  trniliTl'  rendered  generations.  Poetical,  it 
maybe  said,  but  we  have  Aristotle's  authority  for 
holding  that  poetry  may  be  most  closely  allied  to 
philosophy.     We  know,  too,  that  from  early  vivid 


THE   COSMIC  J  L  ARGUMENT.  167 

metaphors  philosophy  draws  its  most  impressive 
language,  however  fossilized  it  may  become  in 
its  later  abstractedness.  *'  Before  the  mountains 
were  bom — we  put  the  emphasis  on  this  word — 
before  thou  \\7idiSi  formed  the  earth  or  the  world  "  : 
The  translation  of  the  second  clause  is  inadequate, 
and  too  suggestive  of  bare  mechanical  or  outside 
fabrication.  The  verb  employed  is  wholly  and 
strikingly  generative,  and  the  idea  of  formation 
it  denotes  must  correspond  to  it.*  It  is  a  term 
used  to  describe  the  pangs  of  child-birth,  from  the 
primary  significance  of  twisting,  thence  writhing, 
struggle,  torture,  just  as  the  latter  word  comes 
from  th«  Latin  Avord  torqueo.  Hence,  in  the 
next  stage,  it  becomes  a  general  term  for  partu- 
rition, from  which  the  translation  is  direct  to 
that  of  production,  or  physical  birth.  But  the 
writhing,  struggling,  agonizing  sense  ever  ad- 
heres to  it  in  all  its  applications.  It  is  produc- 
tion with  labor,  with  overcoming  strength   ex- 


*  Had  the  word  employed  been  the  more  outward  or  seem- 
ingly mechanical  term  oi  format  ton ,  like  "i^S"^  o''  HlSJ^'  the 
idea  would  have  been  the  same,  though  less  vividly  expressed. 
For  Scripture  sometimes  seems  to  reverse  its  language  :  "  Be- 
fore I  formed  thee,"  {fashioned,  ^^^i^^i),  it  was  said  of 
Jeremiah.  Here  an  undoubted  generative  process  is  repre- 
sented as  a  direct  work.  So  the  "possessing  the  reins,"  the 
"  overshadowing  in  the  womb,"  (the  qtdckening),  and  the 
"fashioning  of  the  members,"  in  Psalm  cxxxix. 


1 68  VEDDER  LECTURES. 

erted  against  resisting  forces.  The  old  Greek 
and  Latin  translators  read  the  Hebrew  word 
without  vowels,  and  regarded  it  as  passive,  with 
the  third  person  feminine  preformative  instead  of 
the  second  person  masculine.  Hence  they  ren- 
dered :  "  before  were  formed  or  generated,  yEwi]- 
erjvai,  the  earth  and  the  world."  The  Syriac 
makes  "  earth  "  the  subject,  and  yet  renders  it 
actively :  *'  Before  earth  travailed  in  the  birth," 
keeping  up  the  same  figure  that  is  used  in  respect 
to  the  mountains.  With  the  estabUshed  Maso- 
retic  punctuation,  the  only  maintainable  ren- 
dering is  that  which  takes  it  as  active,  with  Deity 
for  the  subject,  and  yet  giving  it  the  common 
travailing  or  parturitive  sense:  ''Before  the 
mountains  were  born,  yea,  before  thou  didst 
travail  in  birth  with  the  earth  or  the  world,  from 
olam  to  olam,  from  eternity  to  eternity,  art 
thou,  O  God."  It  is  an  awful  figure  ;  the  anthro- 
popathism  is,  indeed,  a  most  bold  and  startling 
one  ;^  but  a  tremendous  idea  was  demanding  ut- 


*  By  giving-  the  verb  here  the  passive  punctuation,  and  re- 
garding "  earth  "  as  the  subject,  taken  in  the  feminine,  we 
avoid  the  anthropopathism  that  some  might  deem  offensive : 
"  Be/ore  the  earth  travailed  m  the  throes  of  partiirifionr 
But  it  is  the  same  great  idea  of  immense  forces  strugghng  in 
the  womb  of  generation.  The  boldest  rendering,  however,  is 
not  only  the  most  grammatical,  but  most  clearly  in  the  style  ot 
Scripture.     So  God's  love  is  compared  to  a  mother's  yearnine; 


THE   COSMIC  A  L  ARGUMENT. 


169 


tcrance,  and  the  soul  of  the  prophet,  the  "  Man 
of  God,"  as  he  is  called  in  the  title  of  this  very 
old  psalm,  was  laboring  to  bring  it  forth.  It  is 
the  birth  travail  in  the  production  of  the  world, 
and  that,  strange  as  the  thought  may  appear, 
ascribed  to  Deit}^ !  If  it  is  an  "  accommodation," 
as  some  would  call  it,  an  aid  to  our  effort  at  con- 
ceiving the  ineffable,  then  let  us  be  humbly  ac- 
commodated by  it : 

Before  the  hills  were  born,  or  earth 

The  throes  of  life  had  known, 
From  world  to  world,  art  thou,  O  God  ; 

Immovable  Thy  throne. 

For  emotional  grandeur ;  for  the  feeling  that 
comes  from  the  ''  Living  Word,"  and  without 
which  thought  and  knowledge  are  dead,  what 
are  meiocene,  and  pleiocene,  and  eocene,  and  the 
frigid  decimals  of  the  geological  notation  to  the 
power  of  language  like  this?  There  is,  too,  an 
awful  suggestiveness  in  the  figure.     It  brings  up 


affection  for  her  offspring.  Isaiah  xlix.  15.  There  is  the  same 
startling  fig'ire  in  Deut.  xxxii.  18  :  "  The  Rock  that  begat  thee, 
the  God  that  bare  thee."  In  the  second  clause  it  is  the 
participle  of  this  same  verb  {niehotel),  and  there  is  the 
same  idea  of  difficulty,  God's  travailing,  as  in  the  birth,  with 
the  rebellious  and  refractory  Israel,  requiring  the  strongest 
resources  of  His  grace,  as  here  of  His  power  in  nature.  HUP- 
FELD  renders  Psalm  xc.  2,  as  above:  '' Bevor  du  gebarest 
Erae  und  La>id.'"'    See  his  comment  and  note  on  teholel,^  iv.  p.  6. 


I/O 


VEDDER  LECTURES. 


the  idea  of  mighty  forces  in  nature,  of  convulsive 
throes,  of  immense  strugglings,  of  Titanic  resist- 
ances, of  a  terrible  ungovernableness  in  the  cha- 
otic and  irrational  material,  as  though  rebelling 
against  the  Logos,  the  divine  Word  or  Reason 
seeking  to  penetrate  it  with  its  formative,  creat- 
ing power,  to  infuse  into  it  its  spermatic  ideas, 
and  to  throw  over  it  the  bridle  and  ''  the  reign  " 
of  Law. 

A  similar  feeling  of  vastness  takes  possession  of 
us  as  we  read  Proverbs  viii.,  22-31,  or  the  sublime 
description  of  the  Hypostatic  Wisdom,  its  eternal 
generation,  its  everlasting  going  forth  in  the  ideal 
structure  of  the  worlds.  What  a  mountain  of 
grandeur  does  it  display  as  it  so  suddenl}^  rises 
upon  us  from  the  comparatively  lower  plain  of 
this  ethical  book!  There  is  much  of  the  same 
language  we  find  in  the  XC.  Psalm,  whilst  there 
still  more  vividly  presents  itself  the  thought  of 
stages  of  antiquity  going  far  back,  one  after  the 
other,  to  that  most  ancient  date  of  all  when  Wis- 
dom was  alone  with  God,  the  First  Born  ixph  -Cyv 
alwvo)v,  before  the  beginning  of  His  creative 
waj's.  We  recognize  in  it  the  choral  anthem 
of  Genesis,  with  its  key-note  of  ineffable  times. 
There  is  the  same  thought  of  great  succes- 
sions, of  an  organic  structure,  like  a  KTimg,  a 
building,    rising  stage   after  stage    to    its    com- 


THE   COSMIC  A  L  ARGUMENT.  jyi 

pletion.  The  Word  and  the  architectonical  Wis- 
dom are  one.  It  is  not  only  the  commanding, 
the  fiat-giving  voice,  but  the  shaping,  organizing, 
harmonizing  agent,  "rejoicing  ever  before  Him, 
and  whose  dehght  was  with  the  sons  of  men." 
Day  after  daj/,  yom,  yojn,  is  he  represented  as 
contemplating  this  rising  structure  until  its  con- 
summation in  humanity,  in  the  beings  who  were 
to  bear  His  image,  as  He  is  the  image  of  the  in- 
visible God,  and  whom  He  had  "  loved  before  the 
foundations  of  the  world."  The  word  day  occurs 
here  also  ;  but  were  the  passage  read  by  itself,  no 
one  would  ever  think  of  twenty-four  hours.  The 
whole  spirit  of  the  language  repels  it. 

The  thoughts  on  which  we  have  been  dwell- 
ing, the  ideas  of  succession,  of  generation,  of 
struggle,  of  birth-travail,  of  strong  resistance,  are 
no  less  visible  in  the  remarkable  descriptions  at 
the  close  of  the  Book  of  Job.  As  in  the  repre- 
sentations of  the  Psalmist  the  mountains  and  the 
earth  are  born,  so  here  the  sea  has  its  natal  pe- 
riod. There  are  more  striking  poetical  accom- 
paniments, but  it  is  the  same  figure  of  birth, 
generation,  genesis,  (pvoL^,  natura,  which  lies  at  the 
root  of  all  early  contemplative  language,  and,  as 
before  remai-ked,  has  become  fixed,  formed,  fos- 
silized, as  it  were,  and  unemotional,  in  philosoph- 
ical and  scientific  speech.     The  sea  issues  from 


1^2  VEDDER  LECTURES. 

the  womb  of  the  great  evolution  ;  for  to  what, 
else  can  the  mighty  figure  refer?  It  is  nursed 
like  the  infant ;  the  araphel,  the  primeval  dark- 
ness, is  its  swathing  band.  But  it  is  an  infant  giant 
full  of  mighty  energies.  As  it  grows  in  strength, 
it  becomes  a  most  stubborn  and  rebellious 
power.  It  is  well-nigh  ungovernable.  It  even 
seems  to  tax  the  Almighty  strength  :  "■  When 
I  broke  over  it  my  law."  There  is  immense  force 
in  the  language  as  thus  most  literally  rendered. 
Our  version  :  ''When  I  broke  up  for  it  its  decreed 
place,"  comes  near  to  it,  but  changes  the  figure, 
adding  the  idea  of  place  to  that  of  law,  or  decree 
clearly  expressed  by  the  word,  as  Jerem.  xxxi.  35, 
*'the  laws  of  the  moon  and  stars  ;"  Job.  xxxviii.  33, 
"  the  laws  of  the  Heaven  and  the  earth,"  and  else- 
where, '*  the  law  of  the  rain."  It  falls  short,  too,  of 
the  significance  of  the  preposition,  i^b^^,  "  upon"  or 
"over  it."  The  verb  is  a  very  common  one,  with 
a  very  uniform  significance,  but  it  sounds  so 
strange  here,  that  commentators  have  been  far 
out  of  their  way  to  get  for  it  the  sense  of  de- 
cision, which  it  never  truly  has,  either  in  the 
Hebrew  or  in  the  Arabic.  Umbreit  shows 
great  insensibilit}^  to  the  grandeur  of  the  pas- 
sage, when  he  attempts  to  get  for  it  the  sense 
of  measuring.  Schlottmann,  the  best  of  the  com- 
mentators  on    Job,   gives  the  true  force  of  the 


THE   COSMICAL  ARGUMENT.  173 

word  :  ''  There  is  in  this  verb  nntr/'  ^^e  says,  "  the 
idea   of  immense    force."     He  finds  in  the  pas- 
sage the  figure    of  "  an  almighty  power  oppos- 
ing   itself   to  the  stubborn  force    of   the  young 
sea  striving  to  extend  itself  towards  the  infinite." 
The  poetry  is    in  the  reversal    of  the  figure  we 
should  expect.  It  is  law  dashed,  or  dashing  itself 
against  the    sea— the   strongest    mode   of  repre- 
senting   the    ungovernable    sea    dashing     itself 
against  law,  and  reduced  by  it  to  the  limits  God 
has  assigned.     It  has  the  same  picture  of  strug- 
gle as  is  presented  in  the  parturitive  language  of 
Psalm  xc. ;— an  anthropopathism,  indeed,  but  fur- 
nishing  the  strongest  expressions  for  the  fact  of 
mighty  forces  in  the  early  natures.     It  gives  us 
most  vividly  the  idea  of  a  real  law,  a  real  caus- 
ality, instead  of  a  train  of   shadowy   sequences 
such  as  a  very  late,  as  well  as  a  very  old,  philos- 
ophy would  represent  nature  as  being. 

The  ClY.  Psalm  is  full  of  similar  ideas.  The 
creative  periods  are  evidently  in  the  writer's 
mind,  as  is  admitted  by  Hupfeld,  one  of  the  most 
rationalising  commentators.  Vast  eventuaUties 
are  there,  but  there  is  not  the  slenderest  sug- 
gestion of  their  brevity,  or  of  any  solar  day  meas- 
urement. The  impression  is  all  the  other  way. 
Sublimity,  vastness  in  time  and  space,  successive 
stages  of  life,  in   the  waters,  in  the  earth,  in  the 


174  VEDDER  LECTURES. 

air — changes  in  the  condition  of  the  earth,  the 
covering  deep,  "  the  mountains  going  up,  the 
valleys  going  down,"  till  they  find  ''  the  places 
appointed  for  them."  The  soul  swells  with  these 
vast  conceptions,  the  canvas  seems  to  dilate,  but 
the  narrow  time  idea  nowhere  appears  ;  should 
it  be  forced  into  it,  it  would  be  like  a  collapsing 
of  the  whole  picture.  Its  absence  from  such  a 
painting  can  only  be  accounted  for  on  the  sup- 
position that  the  writer  of  the  Psalm  derived  no 
such  thought  from  his  inspiring  model.  Other 
passages  might  be  examined  in  the  same  manner, 
and  to  the  same  purpose,  but  our  present  limits 
will  not  permit.  My  hearers  will  not  misunder- 
stand the  ground  or  reason  of  this  course  of  argu- 
ment. It  is  not  the  absolute  verity  either  of  the 
Scriptural,  or  of  any  scientific  view,  as  compared 
with  each  other,  with  which  we  are,  in  the  first 
place,  concerned.  The  beginnings,  and  pro- 
cesses of  creation,  in  their  interior  causalities,  are 
ineffable  things.  They  are  linked  with  the  in- 
finite, and  must  transcend  the  finite  understand- 
ing. It  is  only  shadows  that  we  can  see  in  the 
best  representations  of  them  as  adapted  to  our 
minds.  The  Scriptural  and  the  scientific  may 
present  a  general  outline  parallelism,  but  it  is  no 
disparagement  to  the  former  to  say  that  both  will 
doubtless  require  supplementing,  when  we  cease 


THE   COSMIC  A  L  ARGUMENT.  175 

''  to  behold  them  as  in  a  mirror  enigmatically," 
or  if  we  are  ever  brought  face  to  face  with  these 
dppTjra,  these  now  unutterable  and  inconceivable 
facts  of  time-transcenoing  origin.     In  all  that  is 
here  said,  the  design   has  simply  been  to    meet 
that  objection  drawn  from  astronomy  and  geol- 
ogy, or  the  later  knowledge  of  the  cosmos,  which 
I  have  unyieldingly  kept  in  mind.     It  takes  this 
shape :    The   view  of   things  derived   from    the 
Scriptures  is   narrow  ;    the  creative   account  is 
rendered    obsolete    by   the   advance   of    science 
with   its  expansions   of  time   and    space.     Now 
which  is  really  the  grander  view  ?     That  is  the 
question.     Do  the  conceptions  of  the   Bible,  or 
those  that  may  be  legitimately  drawn  from   it, 
narrow  the  mind  ;   or  do  they,  on  the  other  hand, 
carry  it  to  a  height  where  induction  falters,  or 
utterly  fails    to    follow?     The   question   is   not, 
which   gives  us   the    most   of    fact    knowledge, 
or  fact  sequence,    or   of    a   dead    mathematical 
science  never  getting  be3^ond   the  bare  facts  of 
force  and   motion  endlessly  repeated,  but  which 
most  vividly  reveals  to  us,  in  its  grand  paintings, 
the  true   causality,  the  real  law  of  life  ?     Which 
presents   the  sublimer  view,  the    correlation  of 
forces,  or  the  Scripture  doctrine  of  the  Logos? 
Let  this  be  kept  in  view  as  the  true  issue  and 
the  true  mode  of  stating  it. 


176  VEDDER  LECTURES. 

What,  then,  are  the  true  ideas  given  to  us  in 
the  First  of  Genesis  as  expressed  in  that  old  and 
peculiar  language  ?  They  are  :  ist,  Creation,  or 
the  causing  that  to  be  which  before  was  not, 
whether  in  so  saying,  regard  be  had  to  the  idea, 
the  essential  form,  or  to  the  matter.  2d,  Creation 
by  God  a  personal  and  designing  power.  3d, 
Creation  by  the  Word,  the  Logos,  or  informing 
Reason,  the  Bible  mode  of  representing  what 
science  Avould  unmeaningly  style  creation  by  law, 
or  rather  evolution  itself  the  law,  however 
things  may  be  evolved.  4th,  Creation  in  time. 
5th,  An  outline  representation  of  creation  in  six 
principal  times.  6th,  Creation  by  successions, 
generations,  births,  or  the  bringing  forth  of  one 
thing,  or  one  state  of  things,  out  of  another.  7th, 
Progressive  creation,  each  step  an  advance  on 
the  one  preceding,  from  the  lower  to  the  higher 
stages  of  being, — an  idea  which  science  has  bor- 
rowed, but  which  her  inductions  cannot  prove, 
though  they  often  seem  to  contradict,  8th,  The 
repeated  declaration  at  each  stage,  p  ^X\^\  "  and 
it  was  so,''  or  it  became  Jirm,  established,  se- 
curing the  permanent  continuance  of  each  new 
word,  thus  making  a  reality  of  that  idea  of  law 
of  which  science  talks  so  much,  but  for  which,  in 
her  bare  fact  causality,  she  can  find  no  real 
basis. 


THE   COSMICAL  ARGUMENT.  177 

These  are  the  essential  ideas  of  the  gcriptural 
account  of  creation.  Science  may  worthily 
occupy  herself  with  tracing  and  fiUing  up,  but 
can  never  reach,  much  less  transcend  them. 

I  have  dwelt  on  this  Mosaic  account  of  crea- 
tion, as  it    is  called,  because  it  has  become  the 
main  target  of  modern  scepticism.  An  affectation 
of  contempt  has  been  added  to  deadly  hostility. 
It  is  too  narrow,  the  time  has  gone  by  for  any 
lonP-er  belief  in  it.     The  changes  are  rung  in  this 
way  throughout  our  Hterary  world.  Ignorance  is 
constantly    reiterating   it;   the  young   mind    es- 
pecially is  overcome  by  the  sheer  impudence  of 
its  repetition.     But  the  objection  is  not  confined 
to  the  creation    narrative.     The  Bible,  it  is  said, 
is   narrow    throughout.      It   is   confined   to   the 
idea   of  one  world   in  space,  our  little  earth.     It 
knows,   moreover,  but  one   world  in  time,    the 
single  earthly  epoch,  not  long  ago  starting  out  of 
nothingness,  with  a  blank  undivided  antepast  eter- 
nity immediately  preceding,  then  a  narrow  isth- 
mus of  time  close  shut  in  on  the  other  side  by  a 
similar  blank  of  undivided  duration.  In  opposition 
to  this  I  would  present  the  greater  time  aspect 
of    the  Bible   as    revealed    in    its   great    ^onic 
words,    to    which    due    attention    has   not    been 
given  by  many  commentators,  as  they  have  been 
entirely   overlooked   by  the   scientists,  and   the 
8* 


1^8  VEDDER  LECTURES. 

literary  men,  who  are  so  fond  of  making  these 
charges  of  narrowness.  Let  me  have  your  pa- 
tience in  briefly  dweUing  upon  them  as  the 
closing  portion  of  this  lecture.  The  Olamic 
words,  as  I  would  style  them,  have  not  only  been 
too  much  overlooked  in  our  Biblical  study,  but 
some  of  their  most  remarkable  peculiarities  have 
been  covered  up  by  general  expressions  in  our 
modern  translations.  Of  these,  it  may  be  said 
that  none  of  them  exhibit  that  startling  force 
these  words  carry  with  them  in  their  original 
Hebrew  and  Greek,  and  in  the  older  versions, 
Greek,  Latin,  and  Syriac.  The  reference  is  to 
what  may  be  called  the  asonic  words  of  Scrip- 
ture, the  terms  of  duration  undefined  by  any  or- 
dinary chronological  measurements,  or  used  as 
transcending  time  altogether.  One  feature  of 
this  class  of  words,  as  distinguished  from  any- 
thing corresponding  to  them  in  modern  speech, 
presents  itself  in  their  remarkable  plural  forms, 
so  vivid  in  the  original,  but  so  disguised,  in  our 
translation,  under  the  vague  adjectives,  eternal 
and  everlasting.  K  necessity  of  human  think 
ing  brings  into  the  Hebrew  language,  as  in  the 
other  earliest  tongues,  a  word  for  a  time  or 
times  transcending  history,  and  incommensurable 
by  astronomical  phenomena.  It  is  in  Hebrew  the 
word  Dil3?,  rendered  age,  Greek  a/wv,  saeculum, 


THE   COSMICAL  ARGUMENT.  179 

aeon,    and    denoting   a    world,    or    world   time, 
though  sometimes  hyperbolically  applied  to  long 
historical  periods.      In   its  more  essential  sense, 
however,  as   used    in    the  course  of   the  Scrip- 
tural development,  and    especially  in    the   New 
Testament,  it  means  times  transcending  the  his- 
torical earthly  movement,  whether  regarded  as 
known  or  unknown.     With  its  plural  Q^?2i3?  es- 
pecially, though  so  often  disregarded  in  the  trans- 
lation, it  brings  before  us  the  great  times  of  the 
absolute  kingdom  of  God ;  as  in  the  XC.  Psalm 
already  quoted,  where  the  divine  existence  is  rep- 
resented   to   be   12'b^'$  l^?!  t:bl3?^»  from   olam   to 
olam,  from  world  to  world,  as  our  brief  earthly  Hfe 
is  from  year  to  year,  or  in  its  race  aspect,  from  gen- 
eration to  generation.    In  Ps.  cxlv.  13,  its  mighty 
plural  is  still  further  extended  by  a  superlative 
word :  tl-^^b^?    bD    n^Db^    ^?llDb^,  "  Thy    king- 
dom is  a  kingdom  of  all  eternities,"  an  olam  made 
up  of  all  olams,  a  world  the  complement  of  all 
worlds,  a    niagnus   or  do   embracing    all  periods. 
It  is  this  language  which  St.  Paul  had  in  mind, 
I  Tim.  ii.  17:    (iaotXevg  tg)v  aLG)VG)v,    "King   of  the 
Aeons,"  King  of  the  worlds,  of  the  world-times, 
*'  Kinge  of  Worldis,"  as  Wickhffe  renders  it  from 
the  Vulgate,  Rex  Scculorum^  "  Malco  deolme,  King 
of  the  worlds,  or  leolam  leolamolemin,  for  the  world 
and  for  the  world  of  worlds,  as  it  is  given  in  the  so- 


l8o  VEDDER   LECTURES. 

norous  Syriac.  Our  version, "the  King-  eternal,''  has 
a  grand  sound,  but  its  vivid  time  significance  is 
greatly  marred  in  the  neglect  of  the  plural 
forms.  In  this  way  are  described  the  "goings 
forth  "  of  the  Logos  "  from  the  days  of  eternity," 
Mic.  V.  I.  It  has  reference  to  the  birth  of  Him 
who  was  to  be  "  ruler  in  Israel,''  "  ruler  in  the 
great  kingdom  of  God,''  "  King  of  the  ages," 
though  born  in  one  of  the  least  cities,  of  one 
of  the  smallest  provinces,  of  one  of  the  most 
diminutive  space  w^orlds  of  the  cosmical  uni- 
verse. It  was  spoken  of  Him  who  by  His 
personal  union  with  the  eternal  life-giving,  law- 
creating,  order-evolving  Logos,  was  to  intro- 
duce a  new  evolution  in.  humanity,  raising  it 
to  a  higher  sphere  transcending  the  phj^sical, 
and  to  a  brotherhood  of  higher  beings  which 
nature  never  could  have  reached,  nor  any 
scientific  induction  made  known. 

The  word  olam,  and  the  corresponding  New 
Testament  aZwv,  are  reduplicated  and  retripli- 
cated  to  express  the  absolute  eternity.  They 
are  employed  to  aid  the  human  sense  conceiv- 
ing faculty  in  its  goings  forth  towards  that  in- 
effable idea,  which  an  abstract  negative  can 
only  name  in  its  unemotional  barrenness.  In  the 
later  Biblical  Hebrew,  and  in  the  books  inter- 
vening   between    the    old    Jewish  and  the  New 


THE   COSMICAL  ARGUMENT.  jgl 

Testament  canon,  olam  is  used  for  zuorld,  this 
world,  the  other  world,  the  world  to  come, 
worlds  in  general,  as  expressive  of  the  malcuth 
kol  olainim,  or  kingdom  of  all  worlds,  according 
to  the  language,  Ps.  cxlv.,  xc,  and  other  passages 
in  the  older  Scripture,  where  the  world-sense  is 
disguised  in  the  translation.  The  idea  goes  into 
the  Greek  of  the  later  Scripture,  modifying  the 
classic  aiwv,  employing  its  plural  form,  which  is 
comparatively  rare  in  classical  usage,  and  giving 
it  the  world  significance  derived  from  the  Hebrew, 
though  occasionally  found  in  the  Greek  poets.  It 
is  thus  that  in  the  New  Testament  a^wv,  diojveg, 
are  so  frequently  used  for  worlds,  time  worlds, 
as  distinguished  from  kogilol,  or  worlds  in  space — 
a  plural  that  is  never  found  in  the  sacred  writ- 
ings. The  argument  is  wholly  untenable  that 
this  word  alCdveq,  as  thus  used  in  the  New  Testa- 
ment, denotes  stellar  or  planetary  worlds,  or 
astronomical  spheres  in  any  sense.  From  its 
predominant  usage,  the  Syriac  translators  mis- 
took it  in  some  few  cases,  and  the  cosmical 
view  becomes  still  more  apparent  in  the  later 
Rabbinical ;  but  it  can  easily  be  traced  to  certain 
crude  scientific  ideas  that  began  to  have  in- 
fluence upon  this  comparatively  modern  dialect. 
The  expression,  '*  time-world,'"  may  seem  strange 
and  forced,  but  the  idea  was  very  easy  and  nat- 


1 82  VEDDER  LECTURES. 

ural  to  the  early  mind.  It  belongs  more  to  the 
interior  thought,  and  has  less  to  do  with  any 
outward  scheme  of  science,  than  the  space  con- 
ception. Hence  it  is  less  hindered  in  its  goings 
forth  by  the  limitations  of  our  sense-knowledge. 
It  has,  moreover,  a  solid  foundation  in  the  ne- 
cessities of  the  human  thinking.  A  little  reflec- 
tion shows  us,  that  the  time  of  a  thing  is  as  in- 
herent in  its  reahty,  or  its  true  being,  as  the  por- 
tion of  space  it  occupies,  or  the  force  which  may 
be  said  to  constitute  its  dynamical  entity. 

For  very  clear  proofs,  or  specimens,  of  this  re- 
markable aeonic  language,  I  would  refer  to  such 
passages  as  i  Cor.  ii.  7,  rrpo  rwv  alG)vo)v,  before  the 
aeons,  before  the  worlds,  where  the  reference 
is  unmistakably  to  ante-terrene,  ante-mundane 
things  :  "  The  wisdom  of  God  in  a  mystery" — 
**  the  hidden  mystery  ordained  before  the 
worlds" — the  moral  or  spiritual  kingdom,  with 
its  developments,  existing  before  the  physical 
worlds,  and  as  the  basis  of  their  manifestation  in 
time  and  space  :  (iaauXevg  tCjv  alcjvojv,  "  king  of  the 
worlds,"  I  Tim.  i.  17,  before  referred  to  :  Kara 
TrpodeoLv  rCiv  aLG)VG)v,  "  the  design  of  the  worlds," 
Eph.  iii.  2  :  *'  To  Him  be  glory  during  all  the 
generations  of  the  world  of  the  worlds,"  elg 
ndaag  rag  yeveag  rvv  alojvog  rojv  alojvojv,  the  world 
that  is  made  up  of  all  worlds,  all  time  successions, 


THE    CGSMICAL   ARGUMENT.  183 

all  the  iii'lbliTlj  or  *'  generations  of  the  heavens 
and  the  earth,''  all  the  evolutions  of  all  the  eter- 
nities.    There  is  the  language  used  in  reference 
to  the   Logos,  Heb.  i.  3  :     ''  By  whom  He  made 
the  worlds,  the  aeons."     Again,  ''  By   faith    we 
understand  that  the  alO)va<;,  the  worlds,  the  world 
times,  were  set  in  order  by  the  Word  of  God," 
the  architectonical  wisdom  of  Prov.  viii.  and  Heb. 
xi.   3.     "  To   God  the  Only  Wise,  be  glory,  and 
greatness,   and    might,    and    dominion,    for    all 
worlds  of  worlds,"  elq  -ndvraq  rovq  alcovag  tcjv  al6vo)v, 
Jude  25,  Rev.  vii.   12.     '' And  He  shall  reign  eZ^ 
alcjvag  tojv  alcjvojv,   for  ever  and    for  evermore," 
through  all  the  eternities  of  the  eternities.     We 
ask  again  :    What  are   meiocene  and   pleiocene, 
and   eocene;    what  are   Prof.  Thompson's  inter- 
minable   rows    of    idealess    and   conceptionless 
decimals ;  what  are  our  millions  and  billions,  and 
billions  of  billions;  what  are  they  all  for   emo- 
tional effect  as  compared   with   the  living  ideas 
thiit  agitate   us  in  the   utterance  of  the  ancient 
words,  and   their  sublime  reverberations  ?     It  is 
like  the    barren  x  y  z  of  a  frigid  algebraic  com- 
putation, as  compared  with  the  endless  re-echo- 
ings  of  Handel's  Hallelujah  Chorus. 

The  power  of  this  mighty  Scripture  language 
consists  in  the  fact  of  its  being  so  far  above  all 
earthly  divisions,  leaving  them  so  far  behind,  not 


1 84  VEDDER  LECTURES. 

merely  in  numerical  estimate,  but  in  the  power  of 
thought  they  represent.  In  distinction  from 
dead  formulas,  or  dead  facts,  they  are  living 
ideas  ;  they  belong  to  God's  great  kingdom  of 
life  and  spirit.  They  carry  the  soul  with  them  to 
the  contemplation  of  the  greater  chronology,  the 
world  of  worlds,  to  which  all  physical  worlds  of 
space  and  time,  all  purely  physical  evolutions 
are  wholly  subordinate,  and  from  connection 
with  which,  as  I  have  said  before, — but  it  cannot 
be  too  often  repeated, — they  derive  all  their 
value. 


LECTURE   V. 

THE  KINGDOM  OF  GOD  ;  OR,  THE  GREATNESS  OF 
THE  BIBLE  THEISM,  AS  COMPARED  WITH  THE 
PHYSICAL,   SCIENTIFIC,   AND    PHILOSOPHICAL. 


LECTURE   V. 

THE  KINGDOM  OF  GOD  ;  OR,  THE  GREATNESS  OF 
THE  BIBLE  THEISM,  AS  COMPARED  WITH  THE 
PHYSICAL,    SCIENTIFIC,   AND    PHILOSOPHICAL. 

Preliminary  ideas— Greatness  relative — Distinction  between  conception  and  idea 
— Names  of  Deity  in  Genesis— Value  of  man  not  determined,  increased  or 
diminished,  by  any  space  extent  of  the  universe — Psalm  viii.  and  its  interpre- 
tation as  given  in  Heb.  ii. — Psalm  Ixviii. — Christ's  ascent  above  all  worlds — 
His  raising  humanity  to  higher  spheres  of  being— Beings  higher  than  man 
—Bible  presentation  of  these  higher  ranks  of  existences— Nature  producing 
beings  capable  of  interfering  with  nature  herself— Science  stops  with  man — 
Man,  just  evolved  from  a  very  low  condition,  the  highest  product  of  a  past 
eternal  evolution  ! — Inconsistency  of  this— The  hideous  Hysteron  proteron 
— Biblical  order— Th.^  Logos  in  the  beginning— Idea  first — The  perfect 
first— /'/ywV<?/^ri^/^r—RIatter  and  force  first— The  nebula  in  the  beginning 
—  All  things  made  by  the  nebula— The  highest  in  the  lowest.  Quantitative 
or  dynamical,  as  distinguished  from  spiritual  value  :  the  first  the  ratio  of 
force-being  in  anything  to  the  amount  of  force-being  in  the  universe  ;  the 
second  measured  by  nearness  to  God  the  centre  of  being— Faith,  the  value 
ascribed  to  it  in  the  Scriptures  as  the  measure  of  spiritual  worth — Old  Tes- 
tament faith  compared  with  heathen  virtue — Dictum  of  Strauss  that  the 
Hebrews  had  th.&  personal,  the  Greeks  the  absolute  idea  of  Deity — Absurd- 
ity and  falseness  of  this  —  The  absoluteness  infinity,  timelessness  of 
Deity,  more  powerfully  and  clearly  expressed  in  the  Bible  than  by  Plato — 
Examples — The  Divine  ubiquity,  Psalm  cxxxix. — The  Infinitely  Near,  as 
well  as  the  Infinitely  Far — The  tremendous  equilibrium  as  maintained  in 
the  Scriptures- Pantheism — The  Scripture  Pantheism,  Acts  xvii.— Anthro- 
pathism  of  the  Bible— All  revelation  of  the  Infinite  to  the  Finite  necessarily 
anthropopathic :  not  a  make-believe  accommodation,  but  a  real  coming  into 
the  Finite— The  Word,  the  Reason  becoming  flesh — Revelations  through 
nature,  anthropopathic — Scripture  equilibrium  of  apparently  opposing 
Divine  attributes— God  the  Universal  Power  and  at  the  same  time  a  pa- 
trial  Deity — No  inconsistency — Boldness  of  the  Bible  writers — Philosophy 
cannot  keep  its  balance  here — Need  of  more  study  of  the  Bible  as  the 
great  defence  of  faith. 

The  greatness  of  an  object  of  thought  is  wholly 
relative.     So  is  the  attendant  conception  :  so  is 

(187) 


1 88  VEDDER  LECTURES. 

the  emotion  it  inspires.  It  is  this  latter  element 
that  enters  chiefly  into  the  spiritual  measure  of 
value.  In  one  sense,  it  may  be  said  that  we  are 
what  we  think.  In  a  still  truer  sense,  we  are, 
spiritually,  what  we  feel  in  view  of  what  we  think. 
One  soul  may  have  a  higher  feeling  of  God's 
greatness,  in  connection  with  a  very  limited 
knowledge,  than  another  whose  scientific  or  no- 
tional views  extend  immensely  beyond  it.  One 
soul  may  have  a  more  religious  emotion,  a  really 
greater  emotion,  a  higher  inspiration  from  the 
sight  of  a  mountain,  than  another  from  the  con- 
templation of  the  starry  heavens,  or  the  utmost 
thinkable  spaces,  and  motions,  and  forces  re- 
garded simply  in  their  mathematical  interest. 
Thus,  as  has  been  already  said,  but  will  bear  to 
be  repeated,  David,  and  Pythagoras,  and  Socra- 
tes, with  their  little  astronomical  knowledge, 
may  have  had  a  higher  feeling,  and,  in  this  sense, 
a  really  higher  view  of  that  highest  thing,  the 
divine  glory,  as  exhibited  in  the  cosmos,  than 
D'Alembert  and  La  Place.  The  unscientific 
Jonathan  Edwards  may  have  felt  more  in  the 
contemplation  of  the  astronomical  heavens  than 
a  Herschel  or  a  Peirce. 

In  such  estimates  as  these,  a  distinction  must 
be  made,   too,   between  two  words   often    con- 


THE  KINGDOM  OF  GOD.  189 

founded — a  conception^  and  an  idea.  In  the  same 
mind  the  one  may  be  very  small,  quantitativ^ely, 
and  yet  representative  of  an  idea  as  lofty,  as  limit- 
less, and  as  perfect  as  might  exist  in  connection 
with  the  highest  knowledge.  Let  me  endeavor  to 
make  this  plainer  by  an  illustration:  Abraham 
had  very  little  of  what  may  be  called  astronom- 
ical science.  The  sky  over  his  head  not  very  far 
off,  and  a  great  personal  being  ruling  on  earth, 
yet  more  specially  dwelling  in  the  vast  unknown 
space  that  lay  above  the  visible  dome ;  this  was 
his  sense-conception  when  he  thought  of  God, 
his  diagram  by  which  he  represented  Him  in 
space,  as  he  was  compelled  to  do  if  he  would 
think  of  Him  at  all.  It  was  a  very  limited  con- 
ception, we  may  say,  but,  after  all,  not  greatly 
differing  from  the  sense-conception  we  are  now 
compelled  to  take  when  we  would  thus  repre- 
sent to  ourselves  that  idea.  It  was,  I  say,  his 
conceptual  diagram,  and  ours  is  very  much  like 
it,  though  we  know,  as  Abraham  probably  sus- 


*  The  word  conception  is  used,  not  as  denoting  a  mere 
sense-image  of  God,  but  that  sense-notion  of  His  power,  great- 
ness, and  other  attributes,  or  that  abstracted  concept  of  His 
niode  of  existence,  suggested  by  our  best  knowledge.  The 
idea  is  different  from  this,  as  being  wholly  i?ttellecttiat,  wholly 
for  the  reason,  and  in  that  aspect,  perfect,  though  incon- 
ceivabtc. 


IQO  VEDDER  LECTURES. 

pected,  that  it  was   far  from  filling  the  measure 
either  of  the  spiritual  thought  or  the  spiritual  emo- 
tion.    There  is,  however,  no  reason  for  doubting 
that  the  patriarch's  idea,  in  distinction  from  the 
limited    sense    imaging  his   knowledge   allowed, 
was  as  high,   as  complete,  as  perfect,  in  every 
way,  as   that  of  Sir  William  Hamilton.     Above 
him  and  around  him  lay  the  infinite,  as  expressed 
in  those  three  mighty  Hebrew  words  that  meet 
us  so  early  in  Genesis— those  three  infinities,  b^^ 
tibl5?,  God  of  eternity,  i^tlJ  bi^>  G-o^  Omnipotent, 
^Vb3?    bi^'    God    Most    High — alwvLog,  TravTOKparcop, 
vipLGTog — time,  space,  rank    of  being — living  be- 
yond all  duration,  strong  above  all  might,  high 
above  every  conceivable   altitude  of  glory  and 
dignity.     What  a  contrast  between  this  sublime 
monotheism,  and  the   grotesque  horribleness  of 
the  Assyrian  and   Babylonian   theology,  as  de- 
ciphered from  the  exhumed  tablets  to  which  our 
attention  has  been  lately  called  !     And  what  must 
we  think  of  the  criticism  that  would  regard  these 
as  furnishing  the  "  Editio  Princeps,"  whilst  rele- 
gating Genesis  to  the  position  of  an  unauthentic, 
second-hand    copy    derived  from   such   foul   de- 
formities!    It   was   the  same  grand    patriarchal 
idea  expressed  by  Zophar,  the  Naamathite,  Job 
xi.  7,  under  similar  conceptual  representations, 
and    challenging    comparison   with     any    philo- 


THE  KINGDOM  OF  GOD. 


191 


sophical  attempt  to  set  forth  the  unknowable, 
whether  made  by  a  Spencer,  a  Mansell,  or  an 
Arnold : 

Eloah's  secret,  canst  thou  find  it  out  ? 
Or  Shaddai's  perfect  way,  canst  thou  explore  ? 
Higher  than  Heaven's  height,  what  canst  thou  do  ? 
Deeper  than  Hades'  depths,  what  canst  thou  know  ? 

Heaven  above,  and  the  supposed  Hadean  deep 
below  ;  these  were  the  Hebrew  conceptual  limi- 
tations used  to  express  the  illimitable,  as  they 
were  in  our  Saviour's  day,  and  as  they  appear  in 
His  language  concerning  the  doom  of  Capernaum. 
But  the  idea  itself  they  are  chosen  to  represent, 
has  no  sense  bounds.  The  representative  figure 
is,  in  truth,  the  necessarily  finite  diagram  of 
infinity. 

There  is  another  thought  on  which  I  would 
briefly  dwell  here  as  introductory  to  the  main 
argument  of  this  lecture,  though  it  has  been 
alluded  to  in  Lecture  III.  The  enlarged  modern 
knowledge,  it  is  also  said,  has  interfered  with  the 
old  idea  of  Providence,  whether  as  general  or 
particular.  We  cannot  believe  in  it,  especially 
in  the  latter,  as  in  former  days.  It  is  very  diffi- 
cult to  hold  now  to  any  such  minute  supervision 
of  human  affairs  as  might  have  seemed  credible 
for  a  smalkr  world.  The  immense  size  of  the 
cosmos    throws  into  insignificance  the  destinies 


192 


VEDDER  LECTURES. 


both  of  nations  and  of  individual  men.  The 
objection,  moreover,  assumes  a  philosophic  air  : 
it  claims  to  be  an  enlarged  view,  far  more 
grand  and  lofty  than  the  old  religious  notion 
as  grounded  on  what  it  calls  the  narrow  space 
and  time  conceptions  of  the  Bible.  But  with 
all  its  pretension,  it  is,  indeed,  a  most  human 
mode  of  thinking.  It  wholly  overlooks  the 
thought,  of  all  others  most  important  in  a  re- 
ligious point  of  view,  namely :  that  in  the  true 
idea  of  the  Infinite  One,  there  must  enter  also, 
as  the  complement  of  its  fulness,  the  acknowl- 
edgment of  the  infinitely  near  as  well  as  of  the 
infinitely  far  and  the  infinitely  high — a  thought 
on  which  we  would  more  fully  dwell  in  a  sub- 
sequent part  of  this  lecture,  as  forming  the 
marked  distinction  between  the  Biblical  and  the 
philosophic  theism.  We  can  think  of  but  one 
thing  at  a  time.  He  who  transcends  this,  tran- 
scends it  immeasurably.  *' As  the  heavens  are 
high  above  the  earth,  so  are  my  ways  above 
your  ways,  my  thinking  above  your  thinkingy 
saith  the  Lord."  Vastness  of  space  does  not 
tire,  innumerableness  of  objects  does  not  per- 
plex, their  infinity  does  not  exhaust :  *'  Have  ye 
not  known  ?  have  ye  not  heard,  that  the  ever- 
lasting God,  the  Creator  of  the  earth," — "  He 
who  sitteth  above  the  orb  of  the  world,''  'yyp^  ^V 


THE  KINGDOM  OF  GOD.  103 

f^lJ^n  — "  fainteth  not;  He  is  never  weary; 
there  is  no  searching  of  His  knowledge  ; ''  '*  He 
bringeth  out  His  hosts  by  number ;  it  is  be- 
cause He  is  strong  that  not  one  of  them  faileth.'' 
"How  can  God  know?"  Such  is  their  real* 
language.  How  can  He  be  present  in  every 
part,  with  a  knowledge  of  each  thing,  as  it  is, 
without  losing  for  the  time,  the  thought  of 
others,  or  having  His  attention  drawn  from  the 
great  totality,  the  proper  object  of  the  infinite 
mind.  This  is  simply  a  judgment  of  the  infinite 
by  the  finite.  We  think  of  a  great  totality,  or  of 
a  great  system  of  causation,  as  something  sep- 
arate from  its  parts  and  sequences.  We  are 
compelled  to  take  things  piecemeal,  as  it  were, 
not  from  the  greatness,  but  the  exceeding  narrow- 
ness of  our  finite  thinking.  The  idea  of  some  all- 
embracing  intelligence  we  take  on  trust  as  the 
necessary  complement  to  our  own  deficiency. 
But  with  God,  or  a  mind  we  call  infinite,  all 
effects  must  be  seen  in  their  causes,  and  there- 
fore,  as  distinctly  known,  ever  known,  without 
any  intermittings  of  knowledge,  as  the  great 
movements,  the  great  causes,  or  the  great  totality 
itself  It  is  astonishing  how  it  can  be  supposed 
that  this  difficulty,  which  comes  from  the  object- 
ors' own  poor  thinking,  can  be  remedied  by  that 
exceedingly  human  and  finite  idea  of  machinery, 
9 


jQ.  VEDDER  LECTURES. 

carrying  on  an  original  impulse  like  the  turning 
of  a  crank,  or  the  opening  of  a  valve,  and  thus 
relieving  the  original  power,  and  the  original  in- 
teUigence,  from  all  after-supervision  or  control. 
A  semi-conscious  plastic  nature  created  by  God 
and  endowed  by  Him  with  exquisite  skill,  such 
as  Cudworth  imagined,  or  Plato's  Anima  Mundi, 
which  is  very  much  the  same  conception,  or  a 
view,  not  obscurely  intimated  in  the  Scripture, 
of  mighty  superhuman  beings  carrying  on  the 
movements  of  God's  providence  ;  these  have  a 
spiritual  dignity,  though  not  unattended  v/ith  dif- 
ficulties ;  but  the  idea  of  a  dead  machinery  such 
as  we  use — trusting  all  the  time  to  a  foreign  force 
to  carry  it  on  for  us — is  wholly  anthropopathic. 
It  is  thus  indeed  that  machinery  helps  us ;  in  as- 
cribing it  to  the  Deity  we  are  measuring  Him  by 
ourselves,  and  all  our  talk  of  gravity,  or  of  ''  the 
correlation  of  forces,"  fails  to  relieve  the  diffi- 
culty. And  so  we  may  say  in  regard  to  what  is 
called  a  general  inteUigence.  As  applied  to 
man,  it  is  simply  another  term  for  imperfect 
knowledge  ;  as  predicated  of  Deity,  it  is  without 
meaning.  If  the  universe  can  do  without  God 
now,  it  could  have  so  done  without  Him  in  the 
indefinite  past.  So,  too,  an  absence  of  the  divine 
thought  at  any  time  from  any  part  is  equivalent 


THE  KINGDOM   OF  GOD. 


^95 


to  a  failure  of  that  presence  always  and  every- 
where.* 

But  let  us  state  the  case  more  familiarly  : 
For  the  sake  of  the  argument,  then,  the  sup- 
position may  be  made,  without  objection,  that 
the  doctrine  of  providence,  to  the  extent  in 
which  it  appears  in  the  Bible,  is  not  incredible 
when  connected  with  the  thought  of  this  being 


*  Instead  of  having  any  claim  to  be  regarded  as  an  enlarged 
or  scientific  mode  of  thinking,  there  is  nothing,  in  fact,  more 
deserving  of  the  name  of  a  vulgar  prejudice  than  the  dispo- 
sition to  limit  the  moral  grandeur,  either  of  a  miracle,  or  of 
what  is  called  a  "  particular  providence,''  by  the  spatial 
or  dynamical  littleness  of  their  physical  means.  The  theist 
or  theologian,  of  the  Colenso  stamp,  may  do  this,  but  the 
man  of  science,  however  sceptical  he  may  be,  ought  to 
know  better  than  to  reason  in  that  way.  He  understands 
too  well  that  the  wonders  of  the  microscope  equal,  if  they 
do  not  exceed,  those  of  the  mere  outline  masses,  or  repe- 
titions of  masses,  which  the  telescope  brings  to  our  view. 
His  investigations  are  constantly  leading  him  to  suspect  that 
the  smallest  things  lie  nearest  the  secret  of  life,  and  that 
the  smallest  movements,  apparently,  may  be  most  closely 
connected  with  the  highest  workings  of  the  organizations  to 
which  they  belong.  Especially  is  this  belittling  disposition 
shown,  sometimes,  in  respect  to  certain  miracles  recorded 
in  the  Bible,  and  that  without  any  regard  to  the  grandeur  of 
the  moral  reasons  on  which  their  true  credibility  so  essen- 
tially rests.  Thus  the  theologian  above  named  objects  to 
the  miracle  of  the  "  plague  of  gnats  "  as  recorded  Exod. 
viii.  12,  and  referred  to  Ps.  cv.  31.  It  is  beneath  the  dig- 
nity of  Deity,  he  thinks,  to  suppose  Him  immediately  en- 
gaged in  the  production  of  such  insignificant  creatures  as 
these  Egyptian  kirmim.     Now,  the  language  of  the  account 


jg5  VEDDER  LECTURES. 

the  only  world,  and  the  human  race  upon  it  the 
onl}^  class  of  rational  beings  aside  from  God  and 
a  few  spiritual  essences,  called  angels,  dwelling 
in  some  adjacent  spheres,  atmospherical  or  aethe- 
real,  connected  with  the  earth.  On  such  a  scale, 
then,  we  may  regard  it  as  admitted  that  the 
Scripture  ideas  of  providence,  of  redemption, 
and   the  degree  of  divine  care  for  men  that  they 


is    perfectly  consistent  with    the    idea    of    a    purely  physical 
process,  if  there  were    anything   to  be    gained  by   such    hy- 
pothesis.    We  know  not  what  physical  secrets  may  lie  near 
the  surface  of  nature,  ready  to  manifest  themselves  suddenly 
when  brought  into  the  proper  conditions  ;  as  new  plants  un- 
expectedly make  their  appearance  m  an  old  soil,  or  new  in- 
sects, like  our  plague  of  grasshoppers,  whose  seeds  or  eggs 
may  have  lain  buried  for  ages.    But,  as  a  miracle  proper,  what 
has  reason  to  say  against  it,  unless  it  can  allege  the  absence 
of  any  higher  law,  or  moral  reason  for  it  from  the  hyperphys- 
ical  sphere  ?     Beneath   the  dignity  of  Deity  !    But  the  kiiinim 
are  made  somehow.     Their  law,  therefore,  their  idea,  their 
reason,  must  have  had  a  spermatic  place  in  the  original  plan  of 
the  cosmos.     So  the  scientific  theist  must  say,  if  he  would 
shun  the  blankest  atheism.      But   the   immediate   or    super- 
natural production   of  such  insignificant  creatures  !     That  is 
the  objection.     Let  us  look  at  it.     Why  is  it  more  irrational 
than  to  have  provided,  billions  of  ages  ago,  for  their  ultimate 
evolution, — to  have  made  a  machine,  to  make  a  machine,  to 
make  a  machine,  and  so  on,  to  terminate  at  last  in  such  a 
result }     Where  is  the  economy  ?     Where  the  saving  of  labor 
or  of  dignity  ?    Another  element,  moral  and  hyperphysical,  the 
element  on  which  we  have  so  much  insisted,  is  to  be  brought 
in  to  determine  the  rationale  of  either  process,  general    or 
special,  according  to  the  higher  laws  and  higher  reasons  of 
the  great  divine  kingdom. 


THE  KINGDOM  OF  GOD.  ig'j 

imply,  would  not  be  incredible,  or  beyond  the 
very  probable  bounds  of  a  rational  belief.  Now, 
suppose  another  world  to  be  added  to  our  knowl- 
edge, is  this  credibility  diminished,  and  in  the 
inverse  ratio  ?  Suppose  two,  three,  more,  to  any 
extent ;  does  the  care,  the  providence,  the  super- 
vision grow  less  in  the  same  proportion  :  one- 
half  as  much  for  two  worlds,  one-third  as  much 
for  three,  one-thousandth  part  for  a  thousand? 
or  does  the  moral  ratio — the  moral  value — remain 
unchangeable,  measured  not  by  a  varying  universe 
according  to  a  magnitude  real  or  supposed,  but 
by  the  relation,  physical,  moral,  or  spiritual, 
which  each  part,  especially  each  rational  part, 
bears  to  the  immutable  God  ?  Does  the  meas- 
ure of  human  sins,  and  the  worth  of  the  human 
soul,  thus  rise  and  fall  ?  Bigger  in  a  small-  world, 
less  in  a  greater,  vanishing  to  an  infinitesimal  in  a 
universe  supposed  to  be  immeasurable  ?  Or  must 
we  regard  each  individual  world,  and  each  in- 
dividual rationality,  as  never  falling  below  that 
estimate  of  moral  and  spiritual  value  it  would 
have  Avere  it  alone  with  God,  the  only  world, 
the  only  rationality,  in  infinite  space  and  infinite 
time?  To  think  otherwise,  as  has  been  said  be- 
fore, is  to  suffer  the  lower  power  of  imagination 
to  cloud,  for  a  time,  the  higher  faculty  of  the 
reason;  it  is  to  imagine  God  to  be  just  such  a 


igS  VEDDER  LECTURES. 

one  as  ourselves ;  it  is  to  sink  down  to  the  low 
conclusion  that  moral  ideas,  truth,  holiness,  soul, 
Deity  itself,  are  but  quantitative  or  mathematical 
notions,  having  no  absolute  value,  but  measured 
on  a  sliding  scale  ever  rising  and  falling  with  the 
space  dimensions  of  a  hypothetical  universe. 

The  force  of  this  pretentiously  philosophic,  but 
really  anthropopathic  view,  is  supposed  to  press 
most  heavily  on  the  scheme  of  religion  called 
Evangelical,  with  its  leading  ideas  of  atonement 
and  redemption.*  The  universe  is  too  big  for 
that.  But  there  is  no  stopping  here.  Carry  it 
farther,  make  the  cosmos  bigger  still,  and  there 
must  be  a  denial  of  any  of  that  care  for  men 
which  the  easier  scheme  of  "  Liberal  Christian- 
ity" is  supposed  to  allow.  Pull  out  the  slide  of 
the  telescope,  and  a  general  providence  goes  with 
the  particular;  retribution,  moral  government  of 
any  kind,  punishment  of  wrong  by  any  designed 
process,  penal  or  consequential,  rewarding  of 
virtue  either  by  making  it  its  own  reward,  or  in 
any  other  way,  become  as  incredible  as  special 
or  general  answers  to  prayer.  Human  virtues 
and  human  sins  are  small  affairs,  becoming  smaller 


*  This  is  a  train  of  thought  pursued  elsewhere  in  a  note  to 
the  American  edition  of  the  Lange  Commentary  on  Genesis, 
pp.  183,  184.  It  is  introduced  here,  in  an  abridged  form,  as 
appropriate  to  our  present  subject.  The  paragraph  devoted 
to  it  is  deemed  an  essential  part  of  the  general  argument. 


THE  KINGDOM  OF  GOD.  jgn 

and  smaller  with  every  widening  of  the  physical 
scale.  There  is  no  holding  on  to  anything  par- 
tial, however  large  it  may  seem  from  our  point 
of  view.  Imagine  the  universe  larger  still,  and 
the  generic  begins  to  share  in  the  diminution. 
Races  as  well  as  individuals  disappear  in  the  com- 
putation. Particular  worlds  become  too  small 
for  the  divine  thought.  Carry  out  the  ratio,  and 
systems,  solar,  stellar,  nebular,  vanish  in  like 
manner.  We  are  left  with  a  God  who  has  no  moral 
attributes,  no  care  for  parts  of  any  kind,  no  thought 
of  individuals,  no  knowledge,  in  fact,  except  of 
one  vast  boundless,  indivisible  totality.  We  have 
reached  a  region  where  all  divine  thought,  all 
divine  knowledge  are  merged  in  a  mindless  blank. 
The  conception  of  totality,  too,  has  vanished  ;  for 
a  real  whole,  in  distinction  from  a  mere  all,  or 
aggregate  mass,  cannot  be  truly  thought  with- 
out its  parts.  In  our  imperfect  thinking,  we  may 
take  it  on  trust  from  a  higher  mind  without  its 
filling  up,  or  we  may  get  an  obscure  hold  of  it 
from  some  dim  and  exceedingly  partial  deduc- 
tion from  a  few  parts,  by  which  we  leap  the  vast 
unknown,  or  supply  its  chasm  by  hypothesis. 
But  to  the  Perfect  Intelligence,  where  all  things, 
if  they  appear  at  all,  must  appear  as  they  really 
are,  and  in  all  their  relations,  whether  universal 
or  particular,  there  cannot  be  a  whole,  as  a  zuhole. 


200  VEDDER  LECTURES. 

without  a  distinct  vision,  and  a  distinct  thought 
of  every  part,  as  a  part,  in  its  relation  to  such 
whole,  and  to  every  other  part. 

If,  however,  we  admit  an  ideal  change  of  ratio 
for  man  as  accompanying  a  supposed  enlarge- 
ment of  the  universe,  it  will  be  in  a  direction  the 
opposite  of  that  which  the  objection  seems  to  re- 
quire. For  all  things  that  can  be  called  eitds^ 
such  as  are  all  rationalities,  all  rational  exist- 
ences, whatever  may  be  their  physical  proportion 
of  being,  such  change,  if  admitted  at  all  in  an  ab- 
solute estimate,  must  be  in  a  ratio  direct,  instead 
of  inverse.  The  anthropopathic  view  against 
which  we  are  contending  seems  to  say  :  Man  be- 
comes of  less  account, — it  is  less  easy  to  believe 
him  to  be  the  subject  of  a  particular  providence, 
or  of  an  intense  divine  care,  as  a  member  of  an 
immense  universe,  than  when  regarded  as  dwell- 
ing on  a  lone  planet,  the  only  region  of  life  to  be 
found  in  all  space.  Reason  teaches  just  the  con- 
trary. The  importance  of  man  as  a  rational  be- 
ing— his  spiritual  importance,  though  in  itself  an 
unchangeable  quantity, — is  relationally  enhanced 
by  the  greatness,  both  spatial  and  numerical,  of 
the  rational  spheres.  He  is  the  greater  being 
the  greater  the  city  of  which  he  is  a  citizen,  and 
as  embraced  in  a  scheme  of  redemption  designed 
to  raise  him  to  some  higher  noXiTevfjia,  some  higher 


THE  KINGDOM  OF  GOD.  201 

sphere.  It  is  more  easy  to  believe  that  for  this 
the  Eternal  Logos  became  flesh,  that  now, 
through  this  great  evolution  accomplished  in  the 
Second  Adam,  man  who  had  been  of  the  earth 
earthy  might  be  raised  to  a  higher  stage  of  being, 
and  made  "  to  sit  Iv  rolg  snovpaviGig,  in  the  heavenly 
places  in  Christ  Jesus."  Which  things,  says  the 
Scriptures,  ''the  angels  bend  down  to  look  into." 
Thus  viewed  in  its  spiritual  aspect,  the  scheme 
of  redemption  becomes  grander,  more  gloriously 
credible  with  the  expansion  of  the  rational  as  dis- 
tinguished from  the  physical  universe.  The  in- 
terpretation which  the  author  of  the  Epistle  to 
the  Hebrews  gives  to  that  wonderful  VIII.  Psalm, 
shows  that  the  germ  of  this  idea  had,  even  then, 
its  inspiration  in  the  mind  of  the  royal  seer. 
This  germinal  thought  was  the  destined  human 
glory  as  shadowed  in  the  physical  inferiority 
itself:  "  Lord,  what  is  man  !  When  I  survey  the 
heavens,  the  work  of  thy  fingers,  the  moon  and 
the  stars  which  thou  hast  ordained,  what  is  man 
that  thou  rememberest  him  ?  What  is  a  son  of 
Adam  that  thou  shouldst  have  regard  to  him  ?" 
It  is  then,  as  the  Apostle  interprets  it,  there 
comes  the  thought  of  a  "  Son  of  man,"  of  "  one 
made  a  little  lower  than  the  angels  for  the  suffer- 
ing of  death,  yet  crowned  with  glory  and  honor." 
Dominion  over  nature  had  been  given  to  man  at 

9* 


202  VEDDER  LECTURES. 

his  creation.     But   he  had   lost  it,  in  its  highest 
spiritual  sense;  for  nature  ruled  over  him.     He 
was  the  slave  of  appetite  and  passion.     David 
well  knew   that.      But  the   ''Son   of   Man,"  the 
typical  humanity,  was  one  in  whom  the  language 
was   to   receive    its    highest    inspiration.      "  All 
things,"  says  the  Apostle,  in  seeming  contradic- 
tion to  the  Psalm,  ''  all  things  were  not  yet  put 
under   him  ;  "  that  is,   under   the  Adamic  man ; 
*'  but  we  see  Jesus,"  one  in  whom  the  dominion 
was  to  be  complete  ;  we  see  one  man,  the  head 
of  a  new  humanity,  and  *' to  whom  all  power" — 
the  highest  spiritual  rule — -^*  was  given  in  Heaven 
and  in  earth."     Such  is  tlie  glorious  harmony  of 
Scripture.     It  is  the  same  One  who  is  spoken  of 
in  another  Psalm,  interpreted  in  like  manner  by 
the  Apostle,  as  a  conqueror,  '^ascending  up  oi 
high,  leading  captivity  captive,"  that  he  might 
receive  "•  gifts  for  men,"  and  introduce  humanity 
itself  into  the  highest  spheres  of  being.    Immense 
the    rising,  as   immense   had    been  the    descent. 
"Now  that  he  ascended,  what  is  it  but  that  he 
descended   first   into    the   lowest    parts    of    the 
earth, '*  narcjrepa  fiepf]  rrjg  yyg,  the  lowest  state  of 
physical   being,    the    silence,   the    darkness,   the 
immobility  of  the   grave.      *'  He  was   crucified, 
dead  and  buried." 

Thence  He  arose  ascending  high, 
And  showed  our  feet  the  way  ; 


THE  KINGDOM  OF  GOD.  203 

"above   the   heavens,"   vnepavo),    'Tar  above  the 
heavens,  far   above  the  physical  cosmos,  to  the 
spheres  of  supernatural  and  spiritual  glory,"  or, 
as    the    Bible    language    gives  it,  ^' to  the  right 
hand  of  the  Most  High."     "  Lift  up  your  heads, 
ye  gates,  and  be  ye  lifted  up,  ye  doors  of  eter- 
nity, that  the  King  of  Glory,'' — apx^yog   ri^g  ^GJT'jg, 
the  "  Prince-Leader  of  Life," — "  may  enter  in.''  It 
was   that    glorious   ascension    having  to  human 
sense  its  beginning  here  on  earth,  as  His  rising 
form    faded  away  from  the  human  eyes  so  rap- 
turously gazing    upon    it    from    the    summit    of 
the  Mount  of   Olives.     We    must    not    explain 
this  away  into  a  phantom  show,  or  an  unmean- 
ing spirituality.     The  Scriptures  more  than   in- 
timate that  this  risen  body  of  Christ  transcended, 
in  some  way,  the  ordinary  conditions  of   mate- 
rial   being   in  respect  to  time  and  space.     And 
yet   it   was   a    real    cosmical   transition,    though 
to  the  questions,  how,  or  where,  or  through  what 
spaces,  our  best  conceptions  return  no  answer. 
It    may  have    passed    through  all  spheres,  thus 
connecting    man    as    saved    and    glorified,    and 
raised  above  the  physical,  with  the  highest  or- 
ders   of   being,  and,  through    it,  manifesting  to 
them    rrjv  7toav7tou{lXov   oocpiai'   rov    Geov,  "  the  im- 
mensely diversified  wisdom  of  God."     Men  may 
dispute  the  truth  of  such  a  doctrine,  and  deny 


204  VEDDER  LECTURES. 

its  evidence,  but  they  must  not  say  that  it 
carries  with  it  a  narrowing  conception  of  God's 
cosmical  kingdom.  The  very  lowliness  of  man, 
physicall}'-,  enhances  the  spiritual  greatness  of 
the  Bible  revelation.  When  science  of  herself 
can  give  us  assurance  of  any  such  glorious  hu- 
man destin}^  it  may  venture  to  challenge  a 
comparison. 

It  is  this  idea  of  higher  orders  of  being,  of 
worlds  transcending  the  physical,  and  of  man's 
eventual  connection  with  them,  in  which  the 
Bible  leaves  behind  it  both  science  and  philos- 
ophy. In  the  space  aspect  of  the  trine  universe, 
as  1  have  called  it,  the  Bible  language  falls  short 
of  the  modern  scientific  statement  as  numerically 
expressed,  whilst  excelling  it,  even  here,  in  emo- 
tional power.  In  its  time  aspect,  and  time  lan- 
guage, it  has  a  conceptive  grandeur,  to  say  the 
least,  which  our  decimal  notation  can  never  sur- 
pass. In  the  third  dimension,  or  that  of  height,  or 
rank  of  being,  no  scientific  view  of  the  cosmos 
comes  near  to  it  in  spiritual  elevation.  I  have 
already  touched  upon  this  dimension,  to  some 
degree,  in  treating  of  the  two  others.  Worlds 
beyond  worlds ;  that  is  the  space  view.  Worlds 
after  worlds,  that  is  the  time  conception.  Worlds 
above  worlds  :  this  is  the  thought  to  which  the 
Scripture    calls    us;    not   in    the   space    relation, 


THE   KINGDOM  OF  GOD.  20 5 

where  there  is  really  no  above  and  below,  but  in 
that  of  rank  and  spiritual  value.     Thus  we  speak, 
and   truly  speak  without    a  figure,  of  the  moral 
world,  or  the   world    of  worlds    viewed    in    the 
moral  design,  as  distinct  from  the  mere  material 
evolution.     Again,  there  are  worlds,   so   called, 
and  properly  called,  from  the  kind  of  beings  em- 
braced or  the  ideas  manifested  by  them — worlds 
intellectual,  ideal,  artistic,  it  may  be — worlds  in- 
effable, transcending  both  sense  and  idea — such  as 
"  eye  hath  not  seen,  nor  ear  heard,  nor  the  human 
heart  conceived  " — real  worlds,  yet  having  no  ref- 
erence to  space,  or  correlation  in  space  with  other 
worlds,  yet  filled  with  a  higher  order  of  being — 
worlds  hypercosmical,  supra-mundane,  if  such  ex- 
pressions  do    not   seem    paradoxical ;    as  where 
Christ  says :  "  I  came  forth  from  the  Father  into 
the  cosmos,  and  again  1  leave  the  cosmos  and  go 
to  the  Father." 

There  is  nothing  in  science,  indeed,  to  exclude 
such  ideas  of  higher  worlds  than  the  physical 
and  material,  or  of  higher  and  higher  orders 
of  spiritual  being  ;  but  this  can  be  safely  said, 
that  since  the  days  of  Kepler  and  Newton,  the 
course  of  scientific  speculation  has  not  been 
favorable  to  it.  What  is  called  "  the  Positive 
school,"  especially,  with  its  many  able  advo- 
cates, is  directly  hostile  to  any  such  tendencies 


2o6  VEDDER  LECTURES. 

of  thought.  The  reason  for  this,  however,  is 
moral  rather  than  scientific.  It  comes  from  an 
aversion  to  the  thought  of  anything  superhuman. 
That  would  be  too  suggestive  of  the  religious. 
Something  higher  than  man  !  the  conception 
must  be  barred  out,  or  it  will  mount  up  to  a 
higher,  and  higher,  and  higher  still  It  cannot 
stop  short  of  a  highest,  of  a  comparative  su- 
preme, some  mighty  personalty,  having  in  his 
hand  vast  control  of  nature,  though  produced 
by  nature,  and  thus  falling  infinitely  below  the 
true  theistic  idea  of  the  eternal,  the  unorigi- 
nated,  or  the  unborn.  This  thought  of  a  phys- 
ical Titanic  god  or  demon,  as  a  conceivable 
product  of  the  great  unknowable  force,  has  al- 
ready been  dwelt  upon  in  the  First  Lecture. 
Here  would  we  apply  it  to  the  still  more  con- 
ceivable hypothesis  of  superhuman  beings,  simply 
regarded  as  transcending  our  own  power  of  in- 
terference with  the  physical  order.  There  is 
the  possibility — according  to  the  mathematical 
doctrine  of  time  and  chances,  there  is  the  strong 
probability — that  this  awful  nature,  from  whose 
eternal  play  of  atoms  comes  all  that  is  or  seems 
to  be,  may  have  produced  such  beings,  im- 
mensely superior  to  man,  and  yet  with  no  se- 
curity drawn  from  any  possible  knowledge  of 
nature    herself,  that  they  may  not  be  beings  of 


THE  KINGDOM  OF  GOD.  20/ 

inconceivable  malignity.  Physical  science  has 
no  a  priori  law  or  idea  demanding  that  the 
atoms  shall  produce  a  good  and  benevolent, 
rather  than  an  evil  and  a  hating  consciousness. 
It  may  be,  too,  a  being  or  beings  capable  of 
interfering  with  Nature  herself;  as  in  the  awful 
imagining  of  Milton  : 

"  Gnawing  their  mother's  bowels  ;  when  they  list, 
To  the  womb  returning, — hourly  thus  conceived. 
And  hourly  born,  with  sorrow  infinite." 

For  according  to  the  hypothesis  against  which 
we  are  contending,  or  the  unquaHfied  evolution 
scheme,  nature  has  produced,  in  man,  such  a 
being  capable  of  interfering  with  nature  to  a 
vast  extent,  of  deflecting  it  from  its  course,  or 
of  making  it  do  what,  if  left  to  itself,  it  would 
not  have  done.  Now  whether  we  call  it  the 
supernatural  or  not,  there  is  nothing  in  the  way 
of  conceiving  it  as  belonging  to  mightier  beings 
evolved  from  this  unknown  fearful  womb, — and 
to  mightier  still,  and  mightier  still,  as  far  as 
the  utmost  effort  of  our  science-aiding  imagin- 
ation can  carry  the  appaUing  idea.  Thus  science 
may  have  to  admit  the  miraculous,  or,  not  to 
dispute  about  names,  the  mirabilia,  the  things 
beyond  our  utmost  sense,  our  utmost  induction, 
stupendous  wonders  as  judged  by  Hume's  rule, 


2o8  VEDDER  LECTURES. 

— in  other  words,  phenomena  depending  on  an 
unknown  personal  interfering  will,  far  out  of 
any  traceable  chain  of  impersonal  physical  se- 
quences. It  is  these  sense-transcending  mirabilia, 
this  thought  of  appalling  personal  interferences, 
which  the  infidel  science  would  exclude  from 
the  cosmical  being.  But  here  they  are  again, 
in  spite  of  "  the  Positive  Philosophy ''  and  on 
the  very  hypothesis  that  seems  to  exclude  them. 
Here  they  are  again,  without  the  unoriginated 
I  AM,  the  unborn  God  of  Love  and  Reason,  to 
shield  us  from  their  malignant  power. 

I  have  dwelt  on  this,  digressively,  to  show  that 
the  very  inconsistencies  into  which  the  system 
of  unqualified  evolution  is  compelled  to  run,  in 
its  denial  of  the  higher  being,  prove  the  strong 
aversion  of  its  adherents  to  the  thought  of  any 
personalities  above  the  human  having  been,  as 
yet,  evolved  from  nature,  or  that  primal  nebylar 
substance  in  which  all  things  have  been  lying 
potentially  from  the  beginning.  But  be  the 
cause  what  it  may,  the  fact  is  undeniable.  The 
scientific  form  of  infidelity  is  inclined  to  stop 
with  man.  It  would,  perhaps,  admit  any  amount 
of  mere  physical  being  as  occupying  the  space 
universe  ;  but  rational  being,  if  elsewhere  exist- 
ing, is  essentially  a  repetition,  in  rank  at  least, 
whatever  diversity  there  may  be  in  form,  of  our 


THE  KINGDOM  OF  GOD. 


209 


earthly  h.omo.  Here  they  are  the  narrow  think- 
ers ;  they  are  the  ones  who  make  earth  the 
centre,  or  our  own  sphere  of  being-  the  central 
sphere  in  dignity,  if  not  the  space  centre  of  the 
universe. 

How  immensely  does  the  Bible  transcend  this  ! 
How  much  more  expanding  as  well  as  elevating 
its  view  !  For  here  our  discussion  has  reference 
mainly  to  this  charge  against  the  teachings  of 
the  Scriptures,  that  they  narrow  the  mind,  and 
that,  in  this  respect,  modern  science  has  out- 
grown religious  faith.  The  Bible  does  not,  in- 
deed, give  us  imaginative  or  descriptive  detail, 
but  it  most  vividly  sets  forth  this  altitude  dimen- 
sion of  the  universe,  or  of  universal  being.  It 
transcends  any  view  which  would  give  it  simply 
duration  in  time,  or  an  endlessly  expanding  evo- 
lution in  space — making  it  a  mathematical  uni- 
verse, an  immeasurable  series  of  motions,  a  limit- 
less play  of  correlated  forces,  an  endless  repetition 
of  elemental  phenomena — immense  length  and 
breadth,  we  may  call  it,  with  a  lack  of  Jieight,  or 
an  almost  infinitesimal  thinness,  as  compared  with 
the  idea  germinant  in  all  religious  thought,  and 
which  the  Christian  Scriptures  so  wonderfully 
confirm  and  expand.  The  Bible,  both  Old  and 
New,  places  God  in  the  empyrean.  He  is  de- 
scribed as  '-'  inhabiting  the  high  and  holy  place," 


2IO  VEDDER  LECTURES. 

transcending  in  rank,  immeasurably  separate  in 
moral  purity  ;  the  heavens  are  not  clean  before 
Him.  4>w^  okwv  a-ixpbaiTov  \  He  dwells  in  light 
unapproachable.  His  name  is  the  Most  High. 
He  rules  over  the  kingdom  of  all  eternities,  of  all 
worlds,  in  time,  in  space,  in  rank  of  being.  It  is 
a  spiritual  as  well  as  a  physical  kingdom — the 
latter  subordinate  to,  and  deriving  its  value  from, 
the  first.  This  kingdom  contains  countless  ranks 
of  being  far  below  Deity,  yet  still  many  of  them 
transcending  man.  The  names  given  to  them 
are  not  to  enlarge  our  scientific  insight,  but  simply 
to  denote  superlative  excellence  and  power: 
Angels,  Archangels,  Seraphim,  or  burning  ones, 
Kedoshim,  or  holy  ones,  Bene  Elohim,  Sons  of 
God,  Morning  Stars,  Thrones,  Dominions,  Princi- 
palities, and  Pow-ers.  Immense  the  range,  incon- 
ceivable the  height  in  this  upper  direction. 
The  more  exalted  their  rank,  the  more  occupied 
are  they  with  the  glory  and  adoration  of  their 
still  infinitely  transcending  Maker: 

To  Thee,  Cherubim  and  Seraphim 
Continually  do  cry. 

Again  there  are  orders  of  being  that  may  be  con- 
ceived of  as  more  nearly  related  to  earth,  and 
the  lower  physical  being.  There  are  references 
to  cosmical  powers  of  this  kind  of  which  science 


THE  KINGDOM  OF  GOD.  2II 

has  nothing,  and  can  have  nothing-,  to  say,  either 
by  way  of  proof  or  disproof.  They  are  set  forth 
in  the  Bible  as  God's  ministers  ruhng  in  the  ele- 
ments, having  an  invisible  elementary  organiza- 
tion, yet  exercising  power  over  nature  as  man  does ; 
doing  things  which  are  not  miraculous  in  their 
sphere,  however  they  may  be  regarded  in  ours. 
The  angels  of  the  Egyptian  plagues,  the  angel  of 
the  pestilence  in  Israel,  the  mighty  power  that 
smote  the  Assyrian  host,  belong  to  this  class. 
They  deal  with  the  interiora  of  nature,  the  springs 
of  nature,  lying  far  down  below  our  deepest 
science,  the  keenest  search  of  our  chemical 
analysis,  the  most  penetrating  gaze  of  our  micro- 
scopes. On  the  pages  of  revelation  the  "curtain 
of  the  dark  "  is  sometimes  drawn  aside,  and  these 
powers  are  symbolically  exposed  to  view ;  but 
how  often,  in  the  histor}^  of  the  world,  may  be 
ascribed  to  such  unseen  agencies  as  these,  events 
that  so  puzzle,  as  they  are  now  puzzling,  our  best 
science  !  New  diseases,  sudden  and  strange  in 
their  form,  ever  and  anon  invade  the  world  ;  in- 
explicable phenomena  present  themselves.  Don't 
be  afraid,  is  the  cry  ;  it  is  indeed  hard  to  explain, 
if  it  be  not  jugglery  and  delusion  ;  but  even  if 
real,  it  is  still  law  ;  it  is  all  law  somewhere,  and 
that  comforts  us,  that  magic  word  so  much  more 
tolerable  than  the  idea  of  a  near  personal  God,  or 


212  VEDDER  LECTURES. 

the  near  presence  of  any  of  His  more  immediate 
ministers.  All  law  doubtless,  even  as  man's 
operations  in  nature  may  be  said  to  be  in  accord- 
ance with  natural  processes  on  the  nearer  surface  ; 
but  who  or  what  wields  the  power  of  law  in  these 
deep  interior  stages,  or  these  more  hidden 
springs?  Our  scientific  conventions  take  up  the 
matter;  they  begin  to  trace  some  of  the  plainer 
sequences.  They  get  hold  of  a  few  of  the  nearer 
links  ;  and  lo,  another  form  appears,  or  some  other 
inexplicable  manifestations  present  themselves. 
All  law  doubtless,  but  how  does  that  reiteration 
help  the  matter  in  cases  where  we  stand  in  most 
pressing  need  of  help,  whilst  medical  science, 
and  all  science,  instead  of  its  usual  v^aunting,  can 
only  confess  its  incompetency  ?  The  same 
thought  is  suggested  by  what  may  be  called 
seemingly  abrupt  transitions  in  nature — some  re- 
vealed by  geology,  others  occasionally  present- 
ing themselves  in  nearer  historical  manifestations. 
The  clock  strikes  a  new  hour;  we  are  startled 
for  a  moment;  but  soon  comes  the  comfort 
again:  there  is  a  law  for  it  somewhere;  there 
are  no  leaps  in  nature.  True,  but  what  has 
made  the  connection?  There  may  have  been, 
as  has  been  intimated  in  a  former  lecture,  costs 
and  wheels  far  below  where  science  sees ;  law 
has  been  going  on  in  the  silent  approach  of  these 


THE  KINGDOM  OF  GOD.  213 

in  that  awful   depth,  or    there  may   be   unseen 
powerful  beings  that  by  means  of  other  natural 
forces    have   hastened    the   momentous   contact. 
These  may  be  ministers  of  God,  or,  take  the  pure 
evolution  scheme,  they  may  be  of  nature's  own 
evolving,  entering  into  the  bowels  of  their  parent, 
as  has  been  said,  or  interfering  with  nature  even 
as  her  younger  child  man  has  derived  from  her  a 
power  thus  to  interfere.      The  juxtaposition  of 
atoms  have  made  ^^/r  consciousness,  our  thought, 
our  will,  our   strength,  our  power  to  interfere 
with   the   all-breeding  parent;    why  may  not  a 
congeries  of  higher  and  more  ethereal  atoms  have 
somewhere  and  somehow  produced  a  higher  con- 
sciousness,  a   more   energetic  will,    a    mightier 
strength  for  analogous  purposes,  and  still  mightier 
and  more  science-baffling  effects?     I  may  refer 
here  to  the  phenomena  now  predominant  in  what 
is  called  spiritualism,  but  which  have  manifested 
themselves  in  other  ages  and  from  the  earliest 
times.     The  evidence  has  so  accumulated,  that 
the  easy  talk  about  the  imagination  and  "  uncon- 
scious cerebration,"  and  the  power  of  sympathy, 
has  become  stale.     That  there  is  a  high  measure 
of  reahty  here    can    be  no    more  doubted   than 
some  of  the  positions  of  science  itself,  as  based  on 
similar  evidence.     Equally  clear  to  a  sane  relig- 
ious mind  is  the  proof  that  it  is  an  evil  as  well 


214  VEDDER  LECTURES. 

as  a  very  ancient  thing.  Its  defenders  adopt  the 
common  style;  they,  too,  babble  of  "law,"  and 
show  a  like  tendency  to  include  all  thinsfs  in  a 
godless  physical  system.  In  reference,  however, 
to  our  present  argument,  there  is  need  only  to 
insist  on  the  fact  of  its  wholly  baffling  the  positive 
irreligious  science ;  and  I  would  only  remark, 
once  for  all,  that  when  I  seem  to  speak  harshly 
of  science  anywhere  in  these  lectures,  I  mean  no 
other.  Here,  however,  it  is  enough  to  maintain 
that  no  science  can  deny,  any  more  than  it  can 
affirm,  the  possibility  of  aerial  and  aethereal  ex- 
istences, good  or  bad.  There  may  be  organiza- 
tions transcending  the  utmost  ken  of  the  micro- 
scope or  the  laboratory,  and  yet  as  real  as  any- 
thing visible  on  earth — personal  beings,  benevo- 
lent or  malignant,  having  control  over  the 
electric,  magnetic,  or  odic  forces,  call  them  what 
3^ou  will,  or  themselves  connected  with  them  as 
correlated  organic  agencies.  There  is  something 
very  significant  in  the  name  the  Scriptures  give 
to  some  of  these  powers,  whose  existence  it  un- 
hesitatingly assumes.  It  calls  them  KoafioKp/iTopag 
rod  OKOTOVC  rov  alojvog  rovrov  ''  the  cosmical 
powers  of  the  darkness  of  this  world,"  aeon,  or 
sphere — the  unseen  agents  that  rule  in  the  dark 
world  of  nature,  and  who  are  also  parties  in  the 
moral  conflict  in  which  the  Christian  is  called  to 


THE  KINGDOM  OF  GOD.  21 5 

wrestle,  Eph.  vi.  12.  In  Eph.  ii.  2,  they  are 
called  k^ovaiai  rov  dtpog,  ''  the  powers  of  the  air," 
whether  the  term  refers  to  the  nearer  surround- 
ing atmosphere,  or  to  the  space-filling  aether,  a 
notion  which  the  ancient  mind,  both  philo- 
sophical and  poetical,  clearly  recognized,  and 
which  modern  science  is  rapidly  confirming. 

But    turn    we    now    to   the  higher  regions  of 
cosmical    and    spiritual    being,  and    the    higher 
beings  before  referred  to  as  named  by  Paul  in 
his  glorious  nomenclature,  from  whatever  source 
derived':  Angels,  archangels,  thrones,  dominions, 
principalities,  and  powers.  Immeasurable  height ! 
And  yet  above  all  these  did  Christ  ascend  when 
He  "left  the   cosmos,"    and    "returned    to   the 
Father,    to    the    glory  Vvdiich  he  had  with  Him 
before  the  cosmos  was."     A  narrow  conception, 
shall  we  call  it,  this  sublime  scale  of  being,  and 
that    high    destiny    to    which    men    are    called 
through  the  mediation  of  the  uncreated  Logos! 
Place  it  in  contrast  with  that  well-known  view 
of  the  positive  philosophy  which  makes  man  the 
etro  supreme,  the    highest    order   of   being    the 
infinite  evolution  has  yet  reached  after  an  ante- 
past    eternity  of   working.     Not  man  redeemed 
by  Christ,  not  civihzed  man,  even,  with  all  the 
animality  and  vice  to  which  we  give  that  name, 
but    man    as    he  was    only  a   short  time  ago  in 


2l6  VEDDER  LECTURES. 

the  evolution  chronology,  when  he  first  dev^el- 
oped  a  thumb,  and  began  to  walk  erect,  though 
still  a  prognathian  troglodyte  surrounded  by 
stone  implements  and  gnawed  bones — the  Strauss- 
ian  or  Hegelian  man,  in  whom  the  universal 
force,  the  hitherto  undeveloped  cosmical  soul, 
was  just  emerging  into  consciousness.  Think  of  it ! 
An  endless  evolution,  an  eternal  working,  an  infi- 
nite causation,  and  )^et  an  effect  so  finite.  Nature 
has  been  working  upward  from  eternity,  and 
has  just  passed  the  long-armed  ape  who  begat 
Prognathus,  as  Prognathus  begat  the  troglodyte 
homo.  What  becomes  of  our  doctrine  of 
progress?  As  sure  as  mathematics,  it  should 
have  been  all  evolved,  all  that  we  now  have, 
over  and  over  again, — all  oiit^  or  far  more  of  it 
out  than  has  come  out,  incalculable  ages  ago. 
An  eternal  ante-past  of  progressive  working ' 
To  what  a  height  should  it  have  arisen !  It 
should  have  transcended  all  our  ideals.  The 
most  exalted  finite  being  should  have  been 
reached,  the  most  exalted  that  our  minds  can 
conceive,  instead  of  this  creature  man,  so  poor, 
so  low ;  for  my  hearers  will  bear  in  mind  that  I 
am  speaking  of  him  as  measured  by  no  higher 
scale  of  value  than  that  afforded  by  this  physical 
hypothesis,-  man  evolved  from  nebular  gas — 
man  just  coming  out  of  darkness  and  so  soon  to 


THE  KINGDOM  OF  GOD.  21/ 

return  to  darkness  again — e  tenebris  in  tenebras — 
man  just  stepping  above  the  ape,  or  just  emerg- 
ing from  the  fungus,  and  having  nothing  to 
secure  him  against  speedily  returning  to  nothing- 
ness, or  becoming  manure  to  the  fungus  that^ 
succeeds. 

This  all  comes  from  that  hideous  varepov  npo- 
repov,  that  inversion  of  all  necessary  thinking 
referred  to  in  the  quotation  from  Aristotle,  Lect. 
Third.  Nature  first,  it  says,  matter  first,  an  im- 
palpable nebulous  nihilism  first,  the  lowest  and 
most  imperfect  first  ;  life,  thought,  reason,  idea, 
their  junior  products,  and  God,  therefore,  the 
last  product,  if  there  be  a  God  at  all,  or  anything 
to  which  such  a  name  can  possibly  be  given. 
And  we  are  asked  to  adopt  this,  and  call  it 
grand,  whilst  rejecting  as  narrow  and  soul-con- 
tracting the  Revelation  which  makes  God  first, 
reason  first,  idea  first,  the  perfect  first,  —  as 
has  been  said  before — the  imperfect  and  the 
finite  ever  a  departure  from  it,  whether  in  the 
scale  of  order  or  of  time,  whether  as  exhibited  in' 
processes  of  lapse  and  deterioration,  or  the  con- 
trary seeming  of  recovery  and  restoration  in 
cyclical  rounds.  The  two  schemes  have  two 
entirely  different  modes  of  speech.  Says  the 
mere  physical  hypothesis  :  In  the  beginning  was 
the  nebula,  and  all  things  were  in  the  nebula, 
lo 


2i8  VEDDER  LECTURES. 

and  all  things  were  self-evolved  from  the  nebula 
— even  life,  thought,  consciousness,  idea,  reason 
itself,  having  no  other  source.  The  other  speaks 
to  us  in  language  like  this:  &  o.pxvi  V^  o  Aoyog, 
"  In  the  beginning  was  the  Word,''  the  yloyog,  the 
Reason,  "and  the  Word  was  with  God,  and  the 
Word  was  God.  All  things  came  into  being 
by  Him.  In  Him  was  life,"  Zw?/,  and  "from  this 
life*' — -not  from  motions,  or  molecules,  or  cor- 
related forces,  or  the  vibration  of  fibres,  or  the 
arrangements  of  nebular  atoms,  but  from  this  life 
of  the  Logos,  the  eternal  reason — *'  came  the 
light  of  men  " — the  mind,  reason,  conscience  of 
humanity, — even  "  the  light  that  hghteth  ''  every 
rational  being,  "  coming  into  the  comos."  St. 
John  and  Herbert  Spencer!  This  human  light 
itself  shall  judge  between  them,  and  we  need 
have  no  fears  for  the  ultimate  decision.  But  let  us 
hear  more  of  this  magnificent  style  of  language: 
*'  Who  is  the  image  of  the  unseen  God,  the  First 
Born  before  all  creation,  the  impress  of  His 
substance :  because  in  Him  were  created  all 
things, — things  in  the  heavens,  and  things  upon 
the  earth,  things  seen,  and  things  unseen,'' — 
things  of  the  sense  world,  and  things  transcend- 
ing sense — all  ranks  of  being,  "  whether  they  be 
thrones,  or  dominions,  or  principalities,  or  powers, 
— all  things  were   by  Him,  and  for  Him,  and  in 


THE  KINGDOM  OF   GOD.  2IQ 

Him  all  things  consist,  avvEorr\KE,  or  stand  toge- 
ther " — in  Him  the  Logos,  the  reason,  the  idea, 
the  wisdom,  the  eternal  and  ''only  begotten  Son 
of  God."  This  is  the  narrow  view  ;  this  is  the 
order  of  things  we  are  asked  to  give  up,  that  our 
minds  may  be  enlarged  by  the  more  lofty  method 
of  science  in  its  wholly  hypothetical  scheme  of 
the  univ^erse, — a  science  which  puts  the  nebula 
''  in  the  beginning,"  and  makes  man,  the  ape- 
evolved  man,  the  highest  product  that  has  yet 
been  produced  from  a  past  eternity  of  progress. 

There  is  a  tendency,  even  among  some  who 
believe  the  Scriptures,  to  depopulate  the  vast  in- 
terval between  the  human  and  the  divine,  leaving 
it  an  immeasurable  blank,  or  a  few  angels,  per- 
haps, who  fly  about  the  only  inhabitants  of  the 
void.  But  this  overlooks  the  sublime  sisfnifi- 
cance  of  the  Bible  language.  The  reason  for  it, 
however,  easily  suggests  itself:  The  ascending 
view  seems  to  impair  the  dignity  of  man  as  the 
subject  of  so  great  a  redemption.  But  this  is 
all  changed  when  we  come  to  regard  that  re- 
demption itself  as  the  lifting  up  of  man  into  a 
higher  sphere  of  being,  and  the  rescuing  him 
from  that  sinking  into  nature  through  which  he 
tends  to  the  level  of  all  below,  or  to  the  lowest 
forms  of  a  demonic  animality. 

The  other  idea   proceeds,  moreover,  from    a 


220  VEDDER  LECTURES. 

false  conception  of  dignity  or  moral  worth.  It 
confounds  two  totally  different  modes  of  estimat- 
ing value,  the  spiritual  and  the  physical — the  quan- 
titative or  the  dynamical,  as  compared  with  the 
estimate  of  faith,  or  nearness  of  relation  in  which 
the  finite  being,  however  small,  physically,  may 
stand  to  the  infinite  centre  of  all  being.  In  the 
one  aspect,  the  value  of  any  individual  part  sinks 
in  the  proportion  which  its  total  capacity  of  being 
bears  to  the  whole  of  physical  existence.  The  uni- 
verse, not  God,  is  the  sponsor  and  index  of  value. 
The  bigger  the  universe,  the  less  are  human  sins, 
the  less  the  human  worth.  It  is,  as  before  inti- 
mated, a  variable  quantity,  which,  when  this  ratio 
is  carried  out,  becomes  an  infinitesimal.  When 
measured  by  the  other  scale,  it  is  a  constant  quan- 
tity, unchangeable  in  itself,  whilst,  in  this  cen- 
tral faith  relation,  it  may  even  be  said  that,  instead 
of  sinking,  it  truly  rises,  and  that  too  in  the  direct 
ratio  of  the  greatness  of  the  universe  considered 
as  entering  into  the  greatness  of  the  Creator.  In 
other  words,  the  more  glorious  the  universe  in 
all  the  aspects  mentioned,  and  especially  in  that 
of  ascending  ranks  of  being,  the  greater  is  man 
in  this  moral  aspect,  that  is,  when  regarded  as  a 
rational,  conscious  participant  and  contemplator 
of  this  glory.  "  All  things  are  yours  ;  for  ye  are 
Christ's,  and  Christ  is  God's."     If  so  be  there  are 


THE  KINGDOM  OF  GOD.  221 

immense  degrees  above  him,  the  higher  is  his 
own  value  as  one  rejoicing  in  it,  and  thus  losing 
himself,  as  it  were,  in  an  adoring  view  of  Him, 
by  whom,  and  through  whom,  and  for  whom  are 
all  things.  The  lower  the  vale,  physically,  from 
which  this  rational,  conscious  contemplator  looks 
up,  the  more  beautiful  and  serene  the  heavens 
above,  the  more  sublime  the  idea  of  the  Supernal 
One  sedentis  eternitatem,  "  inhabiting  eternity^' 
*' dwelling  in  the  high  and  holy  place,  with  Him 
also" — O  immeasurable  contrast ! — with  him  also 
"  who  is  humble  and  contrite  in  spirit,  and  who 
trem  le  h  ^t  my  word." 

Physical  or  quantitative  value,  as  I  have  called 
it,  is  numerical  or  mathematical.  It  has  a  fixed 
summation  in  decimals,  if  we  could  find  room  in 
which  to  put  them.  It  is  quantitative,  therefore, 
in  distinction  from  that  transcendental  calculus 
which  no  arithmetical  summing,  no  algebraic 
equation,  no  fluxional  series  can  ever  state.  It 
is  this  moral  nearness  to  God,  as  distinguished 
from  such  quantitative  relation  to  the  universe, 
which  is  so  pathetically  represented  in  the  Scrip- 
tures. Man,  as  a  rational  being,  is  allied  to  the 
divine;  the  imaged  likeness,  though  frightfully 
deformed,  is  still  discernible  to  the  all-seeing  Eye  ; 
God  recognizes  this  distant  relationship  as  He 
sees  him  lying  in  spiritual  ruin,  and  then,  when 


222  VEDDER  LECTURES. 

he  believes,  the  distance  is  gone ;  it  is  his 
faith  which  brings  him  near  to  the  Infinite  One, 
^  and  makes  him,  in  some  sense,  a  partaker  of  His 
infinity.  This  is  his  value.  Hence  the  power 
of  that  glorious  scriptural  anthropopathism  :  The 
Almighty  Shepherd  leaving  the  ninety  and  nine 
to  seek  the  one  that  is  lost  in  the  wilderness. 
Hence  it  is  that  the  ranks  of  ascending  being, 
who  are  represented  as  standing  before  the  face 
of  our  heavenly  Father,  rejoice  over  the  sinner, 
the  one  sinner,  that  returns  from  his  straying,  and 
through  faith  in  God  becomes  united  to  that 
higher  fold,  that  higher  spiritual  sphere  tran- 
scending all  the  spheres  of  force  and  nature. 

In  his  mere  physical  aspect,  man  is,  indeed, 
allied  to  the  lowest  things.  Science,  in  tracing 
him  through  the  inferior  animal  types,  does  not 
present  this  lowly  aspect  more  emphatically  than 
IS  done  in  the  language  of  Abraham  :  "  Who  am 
but  dust  and  ashes ;"  or  in  the  moaning  of  Job, 
v^hen  he  had  lost  his  sense  of  the  divine  com- 
munion, the  link  that  bound  him  to  the  Eternal, 
and  having  in  itself  '■'  the  power  of  an  endless 
life"  :  ''  I  said  to  corruption,  thou  art  my  father ;  to 
the  worm,  thou  art  my  mother  and  my  sister."  It 
is  something  more  than  a  mere  despairing  ejacu- 
lation. In  his  physical  being,  *' as  ot  the  earth 
earthy,''  man  is,  indeed,  allied  to  all  below,  as  in 


THE  KINGDOM  OF  GOD. 


223 


Christ  he  becomes  allied  to  all  above.  And  this 
suggests  the  thought  whether  the  lower  creation 
may  not  rise  with  him  in  some  proportional 
ascent?  Scripture  encourages  the  idea.  The 
KTLGLg,  the  creation,  "  the  creature,  groans  with 
man."  It  is  *'  waiting"  in  mute  hopefulness,  ovv 
aTTOKapadoKLa,  with  bended  head,  with  forward- 
gazing  eye,  with  outstretched  neck,  as  the  pic- 
torial word  implies,  with  longing  expectation, 
elg  T7jv  cLTTOKciXv^pLv  rC)v  vlCdv  rov  deov,  "for  the  reve- 
lation of  the  sons  of  God."  It  is  thus,  too,  we 
see  what  grandeur  links  itself  with  this  human 
lowliness  in  the  cheering  language  of  the  Pro- 
phet :  "  Fear  not,  thou  wonn,  Jacob,  for  it  is  I 
who  have  redeemed  thee  ;  I  hold  thee  by  thy 
hand,  I  call  thee  by  thy  name  ;  thou  art  mine." 
"  Fear  not  ;  only  believe."  ''  For  I  am  per- 
suaded," saj'^s  the  rapt  Apostle,  "  that  neither 
death  nor  life,  nor  angels,  nor  principalities,  nor 
powers,  nor  things  present,  nor  things  to  come, 
nor  height,  nor  depth,  nor  any  thing  created, 
shall  be  able  to  separate  us  from  the  love  of  Go  I 
which  is  in  Christ  Jesus  our  Lord."  What  won- 
drous ideas  are  these  !  So  new  to  the  world  ! 
new  to  an}^  phase  of  its  speculative  theosophy, 
newer  still  as  a  living  emotional  human  utter- 
ance !  "  The  love  of  God" — the  love  of  God  in 
Christ  Jesus  the  Incarnate  Redeemer — "the  love 


224  VEDDER  LECTURES. 

of  God  that  passeth  knowledge  !  *'  That  heavenly 
strain;  whence  came  it  ?  That  superhuman  flash 
of  glory  ;  from  what  philosophy,  Greek,  Latin, 
Egyptian,  Chaldasan,  Persian,  Hindu,  was  it  ever 
developed  ?  All  space,  all  time,  all  rank  of  being 
—  the  universe  in  its  trine  aspect  —  all  is  here. 
Science  shrinks  from  the  mighty  declaration : 
"  Nor  height,  nor  depth,"  no  power  of  the  cosmos, 
either  in  its  altitude  or  its  profundity,  can  separate 
from  God,  or  affect  the  estimate  of  souls  that  truly 
beheve.  Here,  we  say,  is  glory.  But  the  infidel 
philosophy  cannot  see  it.  "  Its  eyes  are  holden." 
Extent  in  space,  dynamical  change,  duration, 
motion,  physical  evolution,  endless  repetition  of 
material  being— these  fill  its  range  of  vision.  The 
height  and  depth  of  the  spiritual  universe,  or  as 
manifested  in  the  glory  of  God ;  these  are  ideas 
which  its  inductions  ever  fail  to  reach. 

So  is  it  to  a  great  extent  in  the  literary  woi'ld. 
The  sublimest  Bible  truths  are  unknown.  The 
organ  for  their  discovery  is  not  wholly  lacking, 
but  the  frivolousness  of  the  predominant  sense- 
philosophy  prevents  their  true  appreciation.  The 
mere  litterateursees  nothing  in  passages  which  to 
the  believer  are  full  of  glory,  whilst  things  not 
worthy  to  be  named  in  comparison  from  classic, 
Brahminic,  or  Confucian  writings,  call  out  raptur- 
ous expressions  of  admiration.     The  Bible  is  full 


THE  KINGDOM  OF  GOD. 


225 


of  anthropomorphisms,  they  say.  How  offensive 
to  their  spiritual  tastes  are  Hebrew  gnats,  whilst 
swallowing,  without  the  least  difficulty,  the  most 
monstrous  of  Hindu  elephants  and  the  most 
deformed  of  Assyrian  camels  !  And  yet  to  the 
devout  student  of  the  Scriptures,  even  the  por- 
tions over  which  the  careless  worldly  reader  is 
most  apt  to  stumble,  are  full  of  evidence  that 
they  are  from  an  earth-transcending  sphere  of 
thought.  Many  have  been  thus  stumbled,  per- 
haps, on  reading  the  glowing  eulogy  of  the  Old 
Testament  behevers  as  contained  in  the  eleventh 
chapter  of  Hebrews, — or  the  long  record  of  the 
men  "■  who  pleased  God,''  because  they  had  that 
thing  "  without  which  it  is  impossible  to  please 
Him,"  even  their  faith.  They  wonder  that  the 
writer  should  speak  in  this  manner  **  of  Gideon, 
and  of  Barak,  of  Jephthah,  of  Samuel,  also,  and 
of  David."  What  was  there  in  these  uncultivated 
semi-barbarians  that  they  should  be  pointed  out 
as  favorites  of  Deity,  or  as  men  ''  of  whom  the 
world  was  not  worthy."  To  the  Bible-taught 
soul  the  answer  comes  with  an  unearthly  hght 
and  power  :  *'  They  believed  God,"  says  the 
record  ;  **  they  endured  as  seeing  Him  who  is 
invisible."  It  is  the  trait  which  most  allures  the 
spiritual  eye  in  those  grand  old  patriarchal 
figures,  so  uncultivated,  as  some  would  say.     In 


10 


^ 


226  VEDDER   LECTURES. 

their  unfaltering  trust,  they  confessed  themselves 
to  be  "  strangers  and  pilgrims  on  the  earth  ;  they 
were  looking  for  a  better  country,  seeking  for 
something  stable,  '  even  a  city  which  had  foun- 
dations.' "  They  had  that  gem  of  faith  shining 
far  up  in  the  highest  heavens,  and  more  precious 
in  the  sight  of  God,  even  when  seen  in  the  heart  of 
an  old  Hebrew  warrior,  like  Gideon  or  Jephthah, 
than  all  the  philosophy  of  Plato,  and  all  the  pre- 
tentious ethics  of  an  Epictetus,  a  Seneca,  or  an 
Antonine. 

It  was  the  saving  faith  of  Samuel,  of  David, 
and  those  other  rude  old  Hebrew  men,  so  differ- 
ent from  that  which  has  been  invented,  and  some- 
times on  the  most  untenable  grounds,  for  what 
are  called  ''heathen  worthies."  The  belief  in  the 
salvation  of  Socrates,  it  has  been  said,  stands  on 
the  same  footing  with  our  belief  in  that  of  Noah, 
Moses,  David,  or  other  Old  Testament  saints,  so 
called,  who  died  before  the  coming  of  Christ. 
But  it  is  ignorance  of  the  Bible  alone  that  can 
confound  the  cases.  The  faith  of  these  Old  Tes- 
tament men  was  ever  a  belief  in  a  righteousness 
out  of,  and  higher  than,  themselves.  It  was  to 
this  they  clung,  whatever  the  message,  rite,  or 
symbol  by  which  it  was  represented.  It  was  ever 
a  righteousness  of  God's  own  providing.  I  will 
yield  to  no  one  in  due  reverence  for  Socrates. 


THE  KINGDOM  OF  GOD. 


227 


But  could  I  find  that  for  which  I  have  earnestly 
searched  among  his  best  utterances,  any  hearty 
confession  of  sin,  any  self-condemning  humility 
aside  from  his  frequent  ironical  disclaimer  of 
knowledge,  anything  like  the  prayer  of  David  or 
the  Publican,  any  confession  like  that  of  Job, 
when,  renouncing  his  own  unsatisfying  argu- 
ments, he  falls  upon  his  face  and  says,  **  I  repent 
in  dust  and  ashes," — any  language  of  deep  self- 
distrust,  any  recognition,  in  short,  of  any  the 
least  need  of  a  righteousness  higher  and  holier 
than  his  own — could  I  discover  any  trace  of  these, 
I  could  draw  from  it  more  hope  of  his  salvation, 
in  Christ's  sense  of  the  word,  than  from  all  the 
fine  sayings  that  have  ever  been  truly  or  igno- 
rantly  ascribed  to  this  noblest  of  the  heathen,  this 
prince  of  all  the  philosophers.  ''  The  heavens 
are  not  clean  in  Thy  sight ;  Thou  art  of  purer  eyes 
than  to  look  upon  evil ;  Thou  desirest  truth  in 
the  hidden  parts  ;  O  wash  Thou  me,  and  then 
shall  I  be  clean  ;  when  Thou  shalt  judge  me, 
then  shall  I  be  whiter  than  snow  ;  a  broken  heart, 
O  God,  Thou  wilt  not  reject ;  search  me,  O  God, 
and  try  me ;  explore  me,  and  see  if  there  be  any 
evil  way  in  me,  and  lead  me  in  the  way  everlast- 
ing ;  I  will  make  mention  of  Thy  righteousness, 
Thine  only  ;  for  with  Thee  is  the  fountain  of  life, 
and  in  Thy  light  do  we  see  light "     When  we 


228  VEDDER  LECTURES. 

can  find  anything  like  these  utterances  in 
Socrates,  or  Epictetus,  in  Seneca,  in  Antonine, 
in  Confucius,  in  the  Zend-avesta,  or  in  the  Vedas, 
then  may  we  have  some  charitable  respect  for  the 
parallels  which  certain  literary  men  are  so  fond 
of  drawing.  Sublime  examples  for  our  argument 
are  still  more  abundant  in  the  New  Testament, 
but,  for  obvious  reasons,  it  was  thought  best  here, 
and  in  citations  to  follow,  to  keep  in  view  chiefly 
the  earlier  revelation. 

''Against  Thee,  Thee  only  have  I  sinned."  Hunt 
through  all  the  dialogues  of  Plato,  hunt  through 
all  the  Vedas  for  anything  like  that.  Sin  as 
against  God,  against  God  alone  ;  Socrates  knew 
nothing  of  it.  It  is  an  idea  hardly  to  be  found  in 
the  classical  Greek  literature.  The  Grecian  sage 
acknowledged  a  war  in  the  soul ;  the  lower  had 
got  above  the  upper.  It  was  a  civil  war,  de- 
structive of  all  good.  That  he  saw  clearly.  The 
disordered  spirit  he  would  compose  and  recon- 
struct, but  he  would  do  it  by  philosophy.  He 
would  make  peace  between  the  reason  and 
the  appetite.  He  would  put  to  sleep  the  wild 
beasts,  or  chain  them  up,  or  set  them  in  balancing 
antagonism  one  against  the  other.  But  he  could 
not  "  cast  them  out."  That  could  only  be  done 
by  prayer,  and  fasting,  and  penitent  confession 
that  acknowledges  sin  to  be  in  the  centre  of  the 


THE  KINGDOM  OF  GOD. 


229 


soul,  and  seeks  peace  there  by  first  seeking-  peace 
with  God.  It  was  the  primal  defect  of  the  Pla- 
tonic or  Socratic  thinking,  that  it  made  matter 
the  original  evil,  and  laid  all  our  sins  upon  the 
wretched  sympathising  body.  Of  that  older  war 
between  God  and  the  spirit,  of  which  the  Scrip- 
tures are  so  full,  Socrates  knew  nothing.  The 
Psalmist,  too,  was  acquainted  with  this  strife  be- 
tween appetite  and  the  reason  ;  but  he  found  not 
the  cure  in  philosophy.  "  Unite  my  heart,"  he 
prays  (Psalm  Ixxxvi.),  make  one  my  divided  heart, 
as  it  literally  reads,  ''to  fear  thy  namey  How 
deeply  Paul  felt  this  inward  strife  we  learn  from 
that  wondrous  seventh  chapter  of  Romans,  and 
we  know,  too,  his  only  remedy,  "  O  wretched 
man,  who  shall  deliver  me?  I  thank  God 
through  Jesus  Christ  my  Lord."  "Let  him  lay 
hold  of  my  strength  that  he  may  make  peace 
with  me,  make  peace  with  me^'  as  the  Prophet  wSO 
tenderly  repeats  it. 

'■'■  Our  modern  monotheistic  conception  of 
God,"  says  Strauss,  "  has  two  sides,  the  absolute 
and  the  personal."  ''The  first  element,"  he  pro- 
ceeds to  say,  ''is  Greek," — that  is,  we  derive  it 
from  the  Greeks ;  "  the  second  comes  from  the 
Hebrew  Christian  sources."  The  distinction 
between  the  Greek  and  Hebrew  conception,  such 
a  favorite   with   Strauss  and   others,  is   a   mere 


230 


VEDDER  LECTURES. 


tinsel  antithesis,  having"  a  false  show  of  learning, 
but  without  any  real  foundation.  Especially  i-^  it 
false  on  the  Hebrew  side.  The  personal  in  Deit}^ 
is  indeed  set  forth  in  the  Scriptures  with  awful 
distinctness,  but  in  no  writings  is  the  absolute, 
the  infinite,  the  unconditioned,  the  knowledge- 
surpassing,  the  time-and-space-transcending  as- 
pect of  the  divine  character  more  sublimely 
presented  :  ''  The  I  am  that  I  AM,  the  'O  .(IN,  The 
Bei?ig  pre-eminently,  who  IS  and  WAS,  and  IS  TO 
COME,  and  whom  no  tense  form  can  adequately 
describe — THE  ONE — the  all — ''  who  filleth  all 
things,"  "  who  inhabits  eternity,"  ''  of  whom 
there  is  no  similitude,"  with  whom  ''  one  day  is  as 
a  thousand  years,  and  a  thousand  years  as  one 
day,"  whose  "  ways  transcend  our  ways,  and 
whose  think'ng  is  above  our  thinking,  even  as 
the  heavens,  the  infinite  heavens,  are  higher  than 
the  earth."  Where  do  we  find  anything  like  this 
in  Plato  or  Aristotle  ?  For  Strauss  must  have 
reference  to  the  Greek  philosophers  rather  than 
to  the  intensely  personal  conceptions  of  the  poets. 
Where  do  we  find  anything  in  any  of  the  Greek 
schools  which  so  sets  forth  the  absoluteness,  the 
eternity,  the  infinity,  the  incomprehensibleness  of 
the  divine  character?  It  does  not  detract  from 
this,  that  such  representations  of  the  timeless 
absoluteness  are    sometimes  made    through   the 


THE  KINGDOM  OF  GOD.  23  I 

most  viv^id  sense-picturings,  though  there  arc 
other  cases,  and  equally  sublime,  where  the  gen- 
eral or  abstract  forms  of  speech  are  used. 

It  is  so,  also,  in  regard  to  conceptive  power. 
This  has  already  been  alluded  to  in  what  was  said 
of  the  old  names  in  Genesis,  and  the  comparison 
between  the  ancient  and  the  modern  sense-imag- 
ing accompanying  those  terms.  God  does  not 
seem,  after  all,  much  higher  to  the  modern  as- 
tronomer than  he  did  to  Abraham.  No  figure  of 
immutability  surpasses  that  of  the  Hebrew  ^3?  "ipilj' 
inhabitans  eternitatem,  ''inhabiting  eternity"  — 
filling  the  changeless  totality  of  being ;  or,  as 
Boethius  expresses  it,  tota  simul  et  interminabilis 
vitae  possessio.  So  also  the  representations  of  the 
divine  unknowableness  to  which  reference  has 
already  been  made.  Again,  God's  mighty  har- 
monizing power — ''the  reign  of  law  " — which  he 
has  established  throughout  the  worlds,  and  the 
Scripture  mode  of  expressing  it,  as  set  forth  in 
Lecture  Third.  There  is  no  show  of  philosophiz- 
ing; no  assuming  to  speak  the  language  of  any 
science.  It  may  be  said,  perhaps,  that  there  is 
an  attempt  here  to  get  more  out  of  this  style  of 
speaking  than  the  words  will  warrant ;  but  it 
cannot  fail  to  be  seen  and  felt  how  directly  it  car- 
ries the  mind  to  the  ultimate  causal  ideas,  and 
causal  forces,  be  they  what  they  may. 


232  VEDDER  LECTURES. 

Take  again  those  attributes  which,  though 
physical  in  their  manifestation,  are  connected 
with  the  moral  aspect  of  the  Divine, — the  ideas 
of  providence  and  omnipresence.  How  won- 
derfully are  these  brought  together,  in  one  pic- 
ture, the  near  and  the  far,  the  intimate  person- 
ality and  the  unconditioned  absoluteness  of 
Deity!  We  have  a  remarkable  example  in  the 
CXXXIX.  Psalm  ;  the  loftiest  co  ceptual  ex- 
pression of  the  space-filling  presence  followed 
immediately  by  language  denoting  the  closest 
personal  familiarity  with  the  finite  human  soul : 
"  Whither  shall  I  go  from  Thy  spirit,  or  w.  ere 
shall  I  flee  from  Thy  presence  ?  If  I  ascend  to 
the  heavens.  Thou  art  there;  if  I  make  ni}^  bed 
in  Sheol,  behold  Thou  art  there  ;  let  me  take  the 
wings  of  the  morning  and  dwell  in  th:  uttermost 
West;  even  there  Thy  hand  shall  guile  me; 
Thy  right  hand  shall  hold  me  fast.  If  I  say, 
let  darkness  bury  me,  the  night  shall  be  light 
about  me.  No  darkness  hides  from  Thee ;  the 
night  shineth  as  the  day ;  the  dai-kness  is  as  the 
light."  All  philosophical  and  scientific  language 
is  ultimately  grounded  on  figures;  but  what 
figures  for  the  soul  can  telescope  the  remote 
more  powerfully  than  these  ?  And,  then,  in  al- 
most immediate  sequence,  the  ineffable  nearness : 
*'  For  Thou  dost  possess  my  reins ;  Thou  didst 


THE  KINGDOM  OF   GOD.  233 

overshadow   me  in   my   mother's   womb.     How 
precious  are  Thy  thoughts  of  me,  O  God,  how 
g-reat   their   sum !     When    I    awake    I    am    still 
with  Thee."     It  is  as  though  the  soul  that  thus 
apprehends   the    Infinite    by  faith  did,  in   some 
way,    partake    of    God's   ubiquity.      In   heaven 
above,  in  Hades  deep  below,  in  all  conceivable 
spaces  that  he  between  the  remotest  East,  where 
morning   begins   its   flight,   and    the    uttermost 
parts  of  the   boundless  sea,  the  conceptual  limit 
of  the   illimitable    West, — wherever    Thou    art, 
there  "  am  I    still    with   Thee,— still    with  Thee 
— evermore  with  Thee."     And  so  in    the    time 
aspect.     God's  eternal  thought  transcends  dura- 
tion  and  succession.     The    longest   as    well    as 
the  shortest  intervals  disappear  before  the  time- 
less contemplation  ;  as  in  the  language  already 
quoted  from  the  Psalmist  and  the  Apostle  :     "  A 
thousand  years  ;  "  it  is  numerically  finite,  even  as 
one  day  or  a  w^atch  in  the   night ;  but  concep- 
tually it  is  a  symbol  of  eternity,  of  a  timeless  eter- 
nity.    The  thousand  years  represent  the  idea  as 
well  as  the  longest  row  of  decimals.    It  is  simply 
the    most    vivid    way    of   setting  forth    the    ab- 
solute timelessness   of    God's    being    except   as 
He    chooses    to    manifest    Himself  in    the    flow 
of   the   finite.     Talk  of  the    Greeks,    and    their 
superiority    to     the    Hebrews     in     respect     to 


2'yA  VEDDER  LECTURES. 

this   idea   of  the   Divine  absoluteness !  what,  as 
compared  with  the  Psalmist's  language,  is  Plato's 
labored  effort   in    the    Timaeus    to  give  us    the 
difference  between  alwv,  the  immovable  eternity, 
and  ;\:p6vo^,or  time,  its  revolving  mirror.     Indeed, 
the  human  mind  must  ever  fail  to  grasp  the  idea 
of  timelessness,  but  no  language  can  carry   our 
thought  higher  or  farther  in  that  direction  than  the 
solemn  musing  of  this  old  XC.  Psalm  :  ''A  thou- 
sand years  in  Thine  eyes  as  yesterday  when  it  is 
past,  and  as  a  watch  in  the  night !  "     The  wings 
of  Plato's  abstractions  grow  weary  in  every  at- 
tempt to  soar  to  such  a  height.     Compare,  too, 
the  effort  of  the  same  philosopher  to  set  before 
us  his  much-labored  distinction   between  the  ra 
ovra  and  the  ytyvofievaf  the  absolute  and  the  flow- 
ing, the  opara  and  the  dopara^  the  visible  and  the  in- 
visible, the  diod7]Ta  and  the  vorjra,  the  sense  world 
and  the  world  of  ideal  or  necessary  truth.   Great 
as  that  is,  compare  it  all,  1  say,  with   that  short 
soaring    sentence    of    Paul,    the    Hebrew   of  the 
Hebrezvs  :   "  For  the  things  that  are  seen  are  tem- 
poral {npoaKaipa),  they  belong  to  time  ;  the  t/iings 
unseen  are  eternal."     Or  go   back  to  the  older 
Hebrew  prophet,  the  cotemporary  and  the  min- 
ister of  King   Hezckiah  :  ''Lift  up   your  eyes  to 
the  heavens,  and  look   upon   the  earth  beneath  ; 
for  the  heavens  shall  dissolve  like  vapor,  and  the 


THE  KINGDOM  OF  GOD.  235 

earth  shall  wear  out  hke  a  garment;  but  MY  SAL- 
VATION shall  be  for  eternit}^  and  MY  RIGHTEOUS- 
NESS (my  moral  kingdom)  shall  never  fail."  Take  • 
it  in  connection  with  the  near  langfuaofe  of  the 
raihng  Rabshakeh,  which  now  so  repeats  itself, 
in  all  its  bald  sameness,  everywhere  on  the  As- 
syrian tablets.  What  must  we  think  of  those 
who  talk  of  these  monuments  as  shedding  light 
upon  the  Bible,  or  of  the  ideas  it  derives  from 
them,  or  from  the  kindred  Egyptian  darkness. 
To  a  serious  intelligence  the  conviction  is  irre- 
sistible that  there  was  something  unearthly  in 
those  Hebrew  books,  as  distinguished  from  the 
literature  of  all  cotemporaneous  surrounding 
nations,  and  that  this  fact  furnishes  an  unanswer- 
able argument  for  their  inspiration  and  unearthly 
origin. 

And  yet  such  is  the  nature  of  this  vivid  Hebrew 
style,  thatjwhilst  it  rises  beyond  all  philosophizing, 
the  child  can  feel,  and,  in  that  feeling  understand, 
its  lofty  meaning.  It  elevates  the  soul  while  it 
sets  it  pondering ;  calls  out  the  contemplative 
spirit,  showing  the  truth  of  that  pregnant  Scrip- 
tural declaration  :  "  The  entrance  of  Thy  word 
giveth  light."  It  quickens  the  intelligence 
through  the  awed  emotion  :  "  it  giveth  under- 
standing to  the  simple."  At  the  earliest  dawning 
of  the  youthful  intelligence  should  the  grand  Old 


236  VEDDER  LECTURES. 

Testament  ideas,  and  this  sublime  Old  Testament 
language,  be  made  as  familiar  to  it  as  possible. 
It  is,  indeed,  above  them,  but  that  is  no  reason  for 
making  it  stand  aside.  Trust  the  power  of  God's 
word  for  lifting  up  the  youngest  minds  to  some 
good  measure  of  its  comprehension. 

It  is  astonishing  how  ignorantly  some  of  uor 
literary  men  will  talk  of  the  narrowness  of  the 
Old  Testament,  and  the  lowering  conceptions  it 
presents  of  Jehovah  as  an  earthly  and  patrial 
Deity, — as  a  God  bloody,  vindictive,  jealous,  in 
the  human  sense,  narrowly  competing  for  earthlv 
sacrifice  and  earthly  homage — or  pictured  simply 
as  thundering  in  the  sky,  or  walking  on  the  seem- 
ing vault  above,  or  inhabiting  temples  built  by 
human  hands,  or  "snuffing,"  as  the  gross  infidel 
says,  the  savor  of  the  burning  victim.  Solomon's 
sublime  prayer,  before  referred  to,  would  be  suf- 
ficient for  the  refutation  of  this,  aside  from  all  the 
other  passages  cited  from  the  Prophets  and  the 
Pentateuch.  Let  it  be  remembered,  too,  how 
much  that  prayer  reveals  of  the  spiritual  culture 
of  the  Jewish  nation  ;  Barbarians,  as  some  would 
style  them  in  comparison  with  the  Greeks.  In 
the  simplicity  of  an  adoring  spirit,  Solomon  seems 
to  feel  that  every  heart  in  that  -great  assembly 
throbbed  in  unison  with  his  devout  utterance  : 
"Will   the  Most   High   dwell   with  men?     Will 


THE  KINGDOM  OF  GOD. 


237 


God  indeed  dwell  upon  the  earth.  Behold  the 
heaven,  yea  the  heaven  of  heavens,  cannot  con- 
tain Thee  ;  how  much  less  this  house  that  I  hav^e 
builded,"  '^  for  the  name  of  the  Lord  God  of 
Israel."  Talk  of  the  Greeks  !  Fancy  such  lan- 
guage used  at  the  dedication  of  a  heathen  temple  ; 
fancy  an  Athenian,  a  Corinthian,  or  a  Boeotian 
audience  listening  to  such  a  strain  ;  fancy  the 
wonder  that  we  should  feel  at  finding  a  supplica- 
tion like  it  in  Pindar  or  Sophocles.  How  would 
the  page  be  marked,  had  there  been  found  in  the 
writings  of  the  noblest  of  the  Greek  theosophists, 
or  the  most  celebrated  of  their  lawgivers,  thoughts 
so  elevated,  so  unearthly,  as  are  uttered  by  Moses, 
the  man,  as  some  say,  who  derived  his  best  ideas 
from  the  dark  animal- worshipping,  or,  at  the 
utmost,  symbol-adoring  Egyptians  :  ''  Take  heed 
lest  ye  forget  the  covenant  of  Jehovah  your  God, 
and  make  for  Him  the  likeness  of  any  similitude," 
as  before  quoted  ;  "  take  heed  lest  ye  lift  up  your 
eyes  unto  the  heavens,  and  when  ye  see  the  sun, 
and  the  moon,  and  the  stars,  ye  be  tempted  to 
worship  them."  Think  what  was  all  around  this 
peculiar  people,  with  their  most  peculiar  litera- 
ture. Think  of  this  strange  monotheistic  cleft 
lying  between  a  misty  pantheism,  filled  with  all 
monstrous  shadows  on  the  East,  and  the  foul 
polytheism  that  everywhere  spread  beyond  them 


238  VEDDER  LECTURES. 

in  the  West.  What  was  the  restraining  power 
which  so  "■  dwelt  in  the  tents  of  Shem,  this  She- 
kinah  presence  that  abode  so  constantly  in  the 
ark  of  Israel."  A  due  consideration  of  the  spiritual 
wonder  here,  casts  into  the  background  the  im- 
portant, though  still  subordinate,  question  of 
physical  miracles. 

Strauss  would  regard  the  ideas  of  the  infinite 
and  the  absolute  as  inconsistent  with  the  personal 
character.  But  how  do  he  and  Spencer  know 
what  is  inconsistent  with  the  unknowable?  Even 
pantheism  may  be  so  held  as  to  admit  the  idea  of 
personality.  In  fact,  the  only  pantheism  we  need 
fear  is  that  which  strips  God  of  His  moral  attri- 
butes by  sinking  Him  into  nature.  I  may  believe 
in  God  as  the  to  nav,  and  yet  regard  this  Great 
Whole  as  a  person  who  knows  me  a  personal 
part,  and  thinks  of  me,  and  numbers  every  hair 
of  my  head.  For  personality  is  the  most  defin- 
able of  ideas.  It  denotes  a  being,  whether  all  or 
part,  whether  infinite  or  only  very  great,  of 
whom  I  can  use  the  personal  pronouns,  saying 
"  He  is,"  or  "  He  is  good,"  or  ''  He  is  the 
rewarder  of  those  who  seek  Him."  Or  it  means 
one  to  whom  I — even  as  a  part — can  say  THOU 
— imploring  Him  in  the  language  of  the  dying 
philosopher :  O  THOU  Great  all,  Siunnia  reruni, 
Summa  Omnium^  Causa  Causarurn^  MISERERE  MEL 


THE  KINGDOM  OF  GOD.  239 

I  can  believe  thus  in  God  as  the  TO  UAN,  and 
yet,  if  I  am  a  Christian,  can  say,  Elohai,  MY  GOD, 
— even  as  the  Apostle  warrants  us,  when  he  says : 
"All  things  are  yours ;  for  ye  are  Christ's,  and 
Christ  is  God's."  It  was  the  Hebrew  Paul  that 
gave  these  philosophical  Greeks  a  lesson  in 
absolutism,  when  standing  upon  Mars  hill  he  said  : 
Ev  av-Ci  yap  Z£1MEN,  koI  KLvovfieda,  km  E2MEN: 
"■  For  in  Him  we  LIVE  and  MOVE,  and  have  our 
being" — not  yivofieda,  but  E2MEN  :  in  Him  we 
live  and  move  and  are. 

The  infinite  can  have  its  finite  aspect.  The 
infinite  may  enter  into  and  act  in  the  finite ;  may 
assume  the  finite.  The  denial  of  this  is,  in  fact, 
the  denial  of  the  infinite.  It  is  virtually  saying  that 
God  cannot  do  all  things;  that  because  we  can- 
not ascend  to  Him,  therefore  He  cannot  come 
down  to  us.  It  is  the  idea  which  makes  intelligi- 
ble, and  renders  so  precious  all  the  anthropopath- 
isms  of  the  Bible,  as  they  are  called.  It  is  the 
ground  of  the  doctrine  of  the  incarnation.  All 
revelation,  whether  in  written  langfua-sre  or 
through  nature,  is  necessarily  anthropopathic. 
Those  who  talk  of  holding  communication  with 
God  through  His  works  use  anthropopathic  lan- 
guage. The  Bible  only  goes  beyond  in  making 
it  mutual.  God  "  comes  down  to  see  what  the 
children  of  men  are  doing."     The  youngest  Sab- 


240 


VEDDER  LECTURES. 


bath  scholar  is  not  deceived  by  the  language  ; 
whilst  the  highest  minds  may  thank  Him  for  such 
a  condescension  to  our  poor  thinking,  our  sense- 
bound  conceptions,  our  yearning  for  communion 
in  some  way,  between  the  infinite  and  the  finite 
mind.  We  may  bless  God  for  such  a  mode  of 
speech  ;  but  we  should  not  forget  how  sublimely 
these  same  Scriptures  set  forth  also  the  far 
aspect,  the  high  aspect,  the  philosophic  aspect, 
if  any  prefer  the  term,  as  well  as  the  near  pres- 
ence. It  is  the  great  peculiarity  of  the  Bible  in 
distinction  from  all  other  writings,  that  it  so  unites 
the  two — that  with  such  unshrinking  boldness  it 
maintains  this  tremendous  equilibrium  of  the 
near  and  the  far,  and  sometimes  in  closest  con- 
nection: *' Am  I  a  God  at  hand,  saith  the  Lord, 
and  not  a  God  afar  off?  Can  an}^  hide  himself  in 
secret  that  I  shall  not  see  him  ?  Do  not  I  fill 
heaven  and  earth,  saith  the  Lord?"  But  phi- 
losophy cannot  keep  its  balance  here.  Li  soaring 
towards  the  infinite  height,  as  it  would  esteem  it, 
It  loses  sight  of  the  infinite  depth,  the  infinite  low- 
liness ;  in  stretching  itself  out  towards  the  in- 
finitely far,  it  fails  to  comprehend  the  infinitely 
near.  The  Scriptural  writers  have  no  misgiving 
in  the  use  of  such  a  style :  "  The  high  and  holy 
One" — ''the  humble  and  broken  spirit  to 
whom  He  comes  down."     There  is  no  incongru- 


THE  KINGDOM  OF  GOD.  24 1 

ity ;  both  notes  belong  alike  to  the  mighty  sweep 
of  this  infinite  diapason.  It  represents  the  fulness 
of  the  divine,  the  fulness  of  Him  that  fiUeth  all  in 
all, — entering  into  the  finiteness,  knowing  the 
knowledge,  thinking  the  thought,  feeling  the  feel- 
ing, and  thus  truly  using  the  language  of  the  hu- 
man m  its  intensest  and  most  human  utterance. 
It  is  no  inspiration  of  earth  that  dares  to  employ 
such  a  style  as  this. 

There  is  a  mode  of  intelligence  which  the  Bible 
represents  God  as  challenging  to  Himself,  when 
he  says :  "  My  thinking  is  above  your  thinking  as 
heaven  is  high  above  the  earth."  Timeless,  space- 
less, without  succession,  one  great  totality  of 
cause  and  effect  as  they  are  mutually  seen  in  each 
other ;  we  try  to  talk  here,  but  our  words  fail 
us.  They  are  aiming  at  something  ;  they  are  not 
altogether  meaningless ;  we  are  confident  that 
there  is  some  reality  to  which  they  point,  as  we  are 
sure  that  there  is  a  real  North  to  which  the  needle 
directs  its  tremulous  motion  in  the  dark  night  of 
storms  ;  but  that  is  as  far  as  we  can  go.  *'  Such 
knowledge  is  too  high  for  us  ;  it  is  wonderful ;  we 
cannot  attain  unto  it."  The  Scriptures  go  be- 
yond Hamilton,  Mansell,  and  Spencer,  in  what  it 
affirms  respecting  the  divine  unknowableness. 
But  still  it  is  the  known  of  God  that  gives  this 
idea  of  His  unknowableness.  ''  His  thoughts  are 
II 


242  VEDDER  LECTURES. 

not  as  our  thoughts."  Most  true  indeed.  But 
again  the  question  returns,  and  we  may  defy  any 
one  to  show  that  it  is  an  irrational  one :  Is  the  beliet 
in  this  transcendent  thinking  and  knowing  at 
war  with  that  other  belief  on  which  all  religion  is 
grounded,  that  God  may  also,  if  it  pleases  Him, 
think  as  we  think,  and  know  as  we  know,  and  even 
feel  as  we  feel, — entering  not  only  into  our  finite 
thought,  but  into  our  sense-world, — yet  remaining 
infinite,  as  He  dwells  unchangeably  in  the  time- 
and-space-and-sense-transcending  sphere  ?  This 
is  the  great  Bible  idea,  "  the  Logos,  or  Eternal 
Reason,  becoming  flesh."  Believing  it,  we  have 
no  more  trouble  with  the  Scriptural  anthropo- 
pathisms.  To  knoAv,  to  think,  comes  under  this 
term  as  much  to  remember,  to  feel,  to  love. 
We  hail  these  modes  of  expression  ;  we  rejoice  in 
them  as  the  language  of  a  father  with  his  tran- 
scending intelligence  coming  down  to  his  finite 
children,  and  that,  too,  not  as  a  mere  show,  or 
make-believe,  but  as  really  entering  into  that 
lower  sphere,  and  there  really  speaking  the  child's 
language  as  the  truthful  though  far-distant  re- 
flection of  His  own  eternal  thought.  All  this,  it 
may  be  said,  involves  the  absurdity  of  the  infinite 
becoming  finite,  or  entering  into  the  finite  sphere 
without  ceasing  to  be  infinite.  But  how  dare  we 
thus  apply  our  measurement  to  One  we  declare 


THE  KINGDOM  OF  GOD. 


243 


to  be  unknowable,  and  boast  of  the  declaration 
as  the  highest  attainment  of  a  knowledge  tran- 
scending the  vulgar?  If  we  resort  to  scholastic 
reasoning,  it  would  certainly  seem  that  the  denial 
of  the  possibility  of  such  a  becoming  would  be  a 
denial  of  the  infinity  itself,  a  limitation  of  the  very 
idea  expressed  by  the  term.  Another  question 
is  raised  in  respect  to  these  anthropopathisms : 
Why  could  there  not  have  been  used  a  more 
philosophical  style,  though  still  human,  or  one 
more  adapted  to  cultivated  minds?  The  answer 
is,  that  whilst  nothing  would  have  been  gained  in 
point  of  significance,  or  any  nearer  approach  to 
the  ineffable  idea,  much  would  have  been  lost  in 
power  and  vividness.  All  philosophic  and  scien- 
tific terms  have  sense  images  at  their  roots.  It 
is  impossible  for  human  language  to  get  out  of 
this.  It  is  ever  metaphorical  in  the  conveyance 
of  ideas  transcending  sense.  By  the  fading  away 
of  the  metaphorical  hue,  words  become  dead  ab- 
stractions, algebraic  symbols,  as  it  were,  deficient 
in  vividness  of  meaning,  yet  compromising  the 
truth  sometimes  by  cheating  the  soul  into  the 
notion  that  there  is  more  in  them  than  they  really 
contain.  When  thus  dead  and  dried,  they  are 
laid  away  in  the  fossil  cabinets  of  philosophic,  or 
scientific,  or  learned  speech.  They  are  the  lan- 
guage of  "culture,"  as   Mathew  Arnold  would 


244  VEDDER  LECTURES. 

say.  In  this  state  they  become  a  dead  weight 
upon  our  thinking,  whilst  the  simpler  or  earlier 
language,  never  losing  its  unchangeable  freshness, 
leaves  the  soul  at  liberty  to  follow  the  illimitable 
idea,  whether  in  the  direction  of  the  infinitely 
high,  the  infinitely  far,  or  the  infinitely  near. 

This  same  awful  equilibrium,  as  we  have  called 
it,  is  preserved  ever  in  the  representation  of  the 
divine  moral  attributes.    It  is  another  peculiarity 
of  our  Holy  Scripture  in  which  no  other  resem- 
bles it.     The  terribly  severe,  the  meltingly  mer- 
ciful ;  the  inexorable  judicial  righteousness,  the 
loving  fatherhood  ;  we  find  them  both  expressed, 
— and  in  the  same  passage,  sometimes, — without 
the  least  shrinking  from  the  near  conjunction  of 
things,  to  our  thinking,  so  seemingly  antagonistic. 
The  same  view  may  be  taken  of  the  unshrinking 
representation  the   Bible   makes  of  God  in  His 
universality,  as   Lord  of  all  worlds,  ''  Lord   of 
Hosts,"  of  all   transcending    ranks   of  being,  as 
^n^^^j  >T^)2,  "  King  of  eternities,"  and  at  the  same 
time,  and   sometimes   in    near   connection,  as  a 
local  deity,  a   patrial  deity,  a  Beo(;    Trarpmog,   ^^ 
3i^nt2J^  el  iSRAEL,God  of  Israel,God  of  His  people, 
—the  I  AM  THAT  I  AM,  the  '  0  HN,  and  in  the  next 
verse   almost   (Exod.  iii.    13)    ''the    God    of  the 
Fathers,  God  of  Abraham,  and  Isaac,  and  Jacob," 
that  much-used  Old  Testament  formula  in  which 


THE   KINGDOM  OF  COD. 


245 


our  Saviour,  in  His  argument  with  the  blinded 
Sadducees,  the  broad  churchmen,  or  wide-think- 
ing people  of  His  day,  found  so  much  of  *'  the 
power  of  an  endless  life."  It  is  that  same  presen- 
tation of  the  infinitely  far  and  the  infinitely  near 
on  which  I  have  been  insisting,  and  which  is  so 
striking  a  feature  of  the  Bible  as  distinguished 
from  all  other  books. 

By  such  writers  as  Strauss  this  near  patrial 
language,  so  precious  to  the  believer,  is  cited  to 
prove  tnat  the  Bible  represents  Jehovah  as  rank- 
ing with  the  gods  of  the  surrounding  nations, 
like  Zeus,  or  Thor,  or  Dagon,  or  Bel,  or  Chem- 
osh.  In  such  a  charge  there  is  wholly  over- 
looked, or  purposely  ignored,  these  declarations 
of  absoluteness  and  universality,  sometimes  in 
the  same  chapter,  and  so  transcending  the  loftiest 
language  of  any  philosophic  or  scientific  theism. 
God  is,  indeed,  set  forth  as  a  Oeoq  narpmog,  a 
patrial  deity,  the  God  of  His  people,  of  those 
who  are  near  to  Him  by  faith.  Not  unfrequently 
does  this  language  become  still  closer,  more 
familiar,  more  personal.  He  declares  Himself  a 
tribal  and  family  divinity.  "  His  mercy  is  unto 
children's  children  of  those  that  fear  Him."  He 
is,  moreover,  the  God  of  the  individual,  of  every 
one  who  beheveth.  He  permits  the  worshipper 
to  address  Him  by  those  near  personal  pronouns 


2^6  VEDDER  LECTURES. 

that  SO  astonish  us  by  their  boldness  in  the 
prayers  of  the  Old  Testament  saints :  '*  O  God, 
my  God  ;  early  will  I  seek  Thee."  ''  Why  art 
thou  cast  down,  O  my  soul ;  for  still  do  I  make 
confession  unto  Him,  the  salvation  of  my  coun- 
tenance " — my  salvation  ever  before  me — "and 
my  God." 

What  the  age  demands  is  a  more  intense  study 
of  the  Holy  Scriptures,  accompanied  by  the 
earnest  prayer :  "  Open  Thou  mine  eyes,  that  1 
may  behold  wondrous  things  out  of  Thy  law." 
The  Bible  itself  must  be  brought  out,  and  its 
mighty  spiritual  power  unfolded,  as  the  best 
answer  to  infidelity — the  Bible  subjectively,  the 
Bible  objectively,  as  the  great  standing  miracle 
of  human  history, — as  presenting  a  train  of  events 
most  unaccountable  in  their  bearing  on  the 
world's  course,  as  containing  ideas  which  no 
philosophy,  no  theory  of  development,  can  ever 
explain.  To  such  study  it  will  reveal  itself  as 
*'  the  power  of  God."  Other  defences  are,  indeed, 
important,  but  without  this  they  are  shorn  of  the 
great  strength  which  alone  can  make  them  avail- 
able to  the  pulling  down  of  "  strongholds,"  and 
the  overthrow  of  the  truth's  unwearying  foes. 


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